Untitled

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 304, 24 December 1877, Page 2

[The questfoa pui; fo Mr Curti3 at his meeting w*s:— "Hem was it, jf as you say Major Atkinson was only acting as the mouthpiece of his party, that he gave notice of the no-confidence motion when only forty-eigufc hours previously, thafe

party had decided that; no undue pressure should be brought to bear upon the Government to induce them to bringdown the Financial Statement, but that all reasonable time should be afforded " ? To this Mr Curtis replied that there was no such meeting a day or two before the notice was given. Thereupon we accused him of oblivion of facts. Now, Mr Curtis admits that a meeting was held, but states that he was not present at it. That, howevGr is not a sufficient reason for ignoring a meeting at which, as our telegram told us, 1 thirty-three were present, and eight seat reasons for not attending." Still it is possible tbafc Mr Curtis was not aware that the meeting— which was attended or approved of by nearly half the membershad taken place, in which case we must withdraw the expressions made use of in our article of Friday last. In the place of oblivion " he displayed ignorauce of facts; instead of being "caught tripping " he was caught napping. Mr Curtis gives a flat contradiction to our assertion that he told us that he was a warm supporter of the Atkinson Government. On a re-perusal of our report, and after taxing our memory with what was actually said we feel compelled once again to alter the words we made use of, and, for " Mr Curtis tells us that he was a warm supporter of the Atkinson Government," we would substitute— Mr Curtis spoke in such high terms of the Atkjnson Government as to lead his hearer to infer that he was one of their warm supporters— Ed. N.E.M ]