A CONTRADICTION.

Manawatu Times, Volume III, Issue 72, 6 September 1879, Page 3

A CONTRADICTION.

TO THK BDliepß, : Sir,— rl was much amused at Vieading an article m your issue of Wednesday, entitled, "Bearing the Brand of tiije porpojration," m whiph— after setting me j»p as the editor of ibe JPeitding Guardian and the author of a letter to the New Zealand Times, signed " Manawatu Elector " — yqu proceed to knock me down again m your own peculiar fashion. For once, Sir, your usual acumen has deterted you. " lam not the author of ' that letter ; I never saw it before it appeared m the New Zealand Times, and I have not, up to the present moment, the slightest idea whq wrote it. lam m the habit of signing my name to any letter I may send for insertion m a newspaper, thereby assuming full.re3p,onsibi^ij;y for any opinions X may express ; and this facs, of which you, Sir, have! had some experience, pught to h»vp made, yqu inor^ cautious m your guesses. As to yQur aaseijtio^ that I am the editor of the Feilding Ghuirdian, I hare, m tha last two months, written one contribution to that pape.r ? and if that amount of Writing constitutes" me. editor, all I can say is that newspaper editors have a much more easy time of it than we out* siders are generally led to suppose,. You have, therefore, been wasting yon^r editorial thunder on the wrong individual, and to quote your own expression, the conteutsof your leader "are slightly at variance with fcruth.V With the Eejnasks made hj Manawatu Elector, on the non-circulation o.f the local journals m this County outside their own immediate districts, I thoroughly agre*, and the wide circulation m Feilding of the Makawattt Tikes (amounting to about thirty numbers), to which you refer as disproving those remarks, m my opinion only endonsei? thiw coi^ectness. — I am, &«., '"'■ D. H, MACABT?fU^. [If. ever there, were a case, of the. '^oap fitting", it is the present. It will be, rememb.ere.d m our letter not the slightest mention, of. Mr. Macarthur's name was made, and ye% the, gentleman has taken our reinar^ to himself M^- M^aanthuß says distinctly i be did not write^ the letter to the Wellington Time*. Well, we will believe him, and aa he. admits that hftis Mr, fljalcombe's alter ego, we w»U reyerse oi^r. former, supposition and assert that it is the, handiworjc of Mr. Halcombe, himsejfe— for. such, a letter, could only emanate from two sources from Feilding. Mr. Macarthur stages that he has only sent one "contribution "to the Qtutrdia'n m two months. We believe that algp, and that accounts for. the dearth of leading matter which has characterised it of late, bnfc will Mr. Macarthur state how many articles he has contributed during Us exis« tenee and their peculiar nature. With re,r gard to the thirty copies, to please, Mr. Macarthur we will not contradict him, b, ut what does the statement prove — that w.e, keep a gentleman at the expense of- £200, a year to represent Feilding, although we, lose £170 by the operation. That is what we call disinterested journalism.— Ed. M.T.}-