STOLE ANOTHER MANS THUNDER

NZ Truth, Issue 1199, 22 November 1928, Page 8

STOLE ANOTHER MANS THUNDER

Harry Atmore, M. P., Dips Into Shakespeare and Ingersoll Without Full Acknowledgment

"70 BE OR NOT TO BE "A NEW MINISTER ?

W[TH the prospect of another election always before him a member of Parliament must very often have an. anxious time trying to please all his constituents. He must be able to stand at the bar m a third-rate hotel- and drink his "handle" of beer with his laboring supporters. He must appear m church regularly to placate the religious^ He must be a polished gentleman at the table of My Lord Bishop and generally when m aristocratic circles must join m with the general opinion that the working classes are on a much lower scale and must hot come between the wind and his friends' gentility. In short, he must always "when m. Rome do as Rome does." : ; -"..,. This continual effort ,to adapt.'himself to > any company is- inseparable from the position of any representative of the people, but how much more important must it be to the member of Parliament who has no means of support other than his Parliamentary honorarium — who is. m other words, a professional politician? Not Half Bad Stuff Thus we must sympathize with Harry Atmore, M.P. for Nelson, and understand his probable anxiety to appeal personally to the diverse kinds of people jn his.elec-, torate. ■ \ The City of Sunshine may fairly claim lo contain an intellectual group of men and women who probably look for more, th.-in fiery speaking- ' and adaptability m their Parliamentary'representative. A -well-known . habit of Harry Atmore appealed to this, section of the community. He often carried a volume of. Shakespeare's works with him and v/as known to be able uO quote extensively from the great poet at a moment's notice. . ■ He considered apparently that that was not enough. His own- intellectual powers should be better known. His opportunity came with the Shakes-, peare ter-centenary. On that day (April 23 last) there appeared m "The Nelson Evening Mail" a lengthy article on "Shakespeare's Day" under the name of Harry Atmore. The article had its effect. "Not half bad stuff," Avas the general comment among the intellectual high-brows of Nelson, and Harry Atmore,. M.P., and literary student, went up m their estimation. Congratulations poured in* upon the modest author of the article and he 'acknowledged, them by remarking m a deprecatory tone that he was a lover of Shakespeare and that he had wishe^ to do a service for other lovers of the bard. Tell-tale Letter One man . studied Atmore's article closely, and being of an inquiring turn of mind, it was not long before ho found a volume of lectures and essays by Colonel Robent Ingersoll, including one. on Shakespeare, which contained the whole? of Harry Atmore's article almost' verbatim. The who made the discovery mentioned it to several of his friends, but nothing more was heard of it publicly until the.ckiy before the elections, when the following letter appeared .m the Nelson "Mail": "AUTHORSHIP OF A SPECIAL ARTICLE "A Question For Mr. Atmore "(To the Editor.) "Sir, — 'To-night will be ''Mr. Atmore's last meeting. To-night Mr. Atmore will for several hours address a large and enthusiastic audience and/ apart from his usual clear and definite statements of policy, will . engage m; affording explanations of his pa«t and future conduct and will delight ' them with his inimitable sarcasm. '•■.'.'■■■>. "Whilst so engaged I should be glad If he would devote a few' minutes to dealing, with and answering the question asked m this letter which, so that there may be no misunderstanding m the minds of either Mr. Atmore or of the public, I am. asking yo,u to publish m your columns to-nig.tit. In order that the facts may be clear I will set them out. '■■■ < "On the occasion of : the Shakespeare ter-centenary celebrations some time ago an article appeared -in: the ' Nelson 'Evening Mall' dealing with Shakesiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

The possibility of the United Party assuming 1 the reins of Government m New Zealand, has led to many speculations about Sir Joseph Ward's' Cabinet. Among possible ministers the name of Harry Atmore, the >member for Nelson, has been, freely spoken of as the new Minister of Education. This story proves him guilty of literary theft, and the question arises: Does that fact m any way affect Atmore's suitability for a Cabinet position?

peare, his life and works. The heading of the article ran as tollows: 'Shakespeare's Day. April 23rd, The World's GVeatest Genius (by Harry Atmore).' "This article was read Avlth considerable interest and appreciation by a large section of the pulilic, and there Is no doubt that large numbers, like myself, gave Mr. Atmore very considerable credit not only for his interesting subject matter, but also for the extraordinarily able manner m Which he handled his prose. The essay appeared to me to be one of the best examples of amateur prose which it had been my good fortune to read, | find to me it was 'almost incredible that Mr. Atmore had been able to write it. "It was not until Inter that I discovered that the whole article was almost a verbatim transcript from Ingersoll's Essay on Shakespeare, taken from 'Lectures and Essays' by Col. R. G. Ingersoll (first series), published by Watts and Co., London. "With the limited space a.t your'disposal, sir, it is impossible 'to 'ask you to set out the original and counterfeit essays m parallel columns,, but the public will no doubt take my- assurance when I "say that I have myself compared the two documents line for line, and that m the published copy out of some 440 lines only 22 lines are attributable to Mr. Atmore, and m no sense has the inclusion of these lines improved the. original.

"^t may be said that this matter is not one for politics, but I contend that the character of a candidate who is aspiring to political honours is m every sense of public importance, and I cannot believe that a man who has apparently perpetrated such an impudent piece of plagiarism is the sort of person who would appeal to the. general bulk of the public. ' "It is inconceivable that a public man m Mr. Atmore's position could have .deliberately palmed off on the public the- work of one of the world's greatest critics as his own. and 3>-et it is difficult to .see how he could have done it m ignorance. "In replying to the question it would, perhaps be unnecessary for Mr, Atmore to inform his audience that the article was published without his authority, nor can I see that his somewhat hackneyed references to black labour are likely to assist the public m understanding his explanation. ."I shall,! therefore, put the question, which -I. trust he' will answer with candour. It is this: . "Did Mr, Atmore publish the .article on Shakespeare m the 'Evening Mail' of /the 23rd April, 1928, under his own name deliberately or m ignorance; and m either case why did he not either m the heading or m the course of the article frankly acknowledge the assistance of the great critic from Avhose work the article was culled?

"Alternatively, it the article was published by mistake, why was not a correction published m a subsequent issue? "I am, etc., W. CARROL HARLEY. "Nelson, 13th November." The letter was followed by an editor's footnote: As our readers will feel that some statement on the subject is due from us we desire to 'make it clear that the article referred to was published by us m good faith. We believed it to be an original compilation. The writer of that tetter and the member for Nelson are enemies of long standing. On this occasion Ha'rley was also chairman of the Reform candidate's committee. Naturally, the letter caused a considerable stir. People discussed it from all angles and wondered what Atmore would say. Would he refer to the letter at all? Could he possibly have an adequate answer? He was advertised to speak at the Theatre Royal on the last night before For The Pleasure the elections, and the eager crowd, who more than filled the building, were not left long m expectation. Atmore dealt with the letter first. He said that m the paper that night was a letter signed by the chairman of his opponent's committee concerning an article on Shakespeare. Ajtmore contended that it was not a very serious matter, although he had been accused of trying to get the honor oJ; writing an article on Shakespeare. "I thought," continued the speaker, amid laughter, "that everyone who was educated would know who had written it." It was true that he had compiled it. He wrote it not for money but for the pleasure of reading Shiikespeare again. He had tried to put it m the best' form for the pleasure of the people. He thought that at least a-laAvyer would have known who had' written it. Atmore then adopted the wisest course m the circumstances, and dismissed the matter as of no importance. Had he left it at that it would have been nothing" more than a storm m a tea-cup, and would soon have been forgotten. But Atmorc's impetuosity got the better of him and landed him m a worse position than he ; was m before. • When the results of the Nelson poll were known it was found tiiat Atmore had retained, the seat by a substantial majority. A little time later he appeared on fhe platform near "Tug Mail's" election board, to address the large crowd assembled below. Read Years Before Perhaps the effect of the crowd on the best speaker "m the House," or perhaps the excitement of victory affected Atmore's judgment. At any rate,' he referred to the Shakespeare article again. He gave an excuse which was at variance with what he had su ill at the theatre the previous evening;. • He. said, that he resented the action of the chairman of his. opponent's committee m putting that letter m the paper tiie. previous night. No one who had the slightest idea of; what education meant would have thought that the speaker, was attempting to use the work of another man. He did not have the book he was said to have quoted from when he wrote the article. He had read the book years previously, and he was astonished when he was accused of having used passages from it without acknowledgment. He had three commentaries before him when he wrote the article and he used material from them together with comments of His own. It was a dastardly act to have left it until the last night because the letter was written a fortnight ago, and not by the man who signed it. In other words, Atmore asked his audience to believe that he had written without an error m punctuation or wording, many long passages out of a book which he had not read for several years. A wonderful feat of memory! If. Atmore did not intend to deceive the public with his article, why did he, m the course of it, acknowledge only two quotations to Ingersoll, and not the remainder of the excerpts?