PUBLIC OPINION.

Patea Mail, 23 November 1881, Page 3

PUBLIC OPINION.

THE LIBEL CASE. I have to ask you for space in your paper for the following remarks on Mr Keys’s statement. After the case was concluded in the R.M. Court, I went to Mr Keys, who was standing in Egmont-street. I told him I had refrained from speaking to him while the case was going on, but now wished to know if he would have been prepared to substantiate Mr Houghton’s statement. He said “ No,” and in the presence of different gentlemen he said—“ I was in your timber yard unloading a waggom when I asked you what papers Beamish had taking about. You said it was requisitions asking Milroy, Dixon, Black, and Barker to stand for the Borough Council. I said ‘ Why did you not send to the other members of the Board ?’ You replied that you had got them up for those gentlemen, and if any person liked they could get requisitions for the other. This was all that was said.” It will be seen that there is nothing in the above statement referring to a party, and you will now understand why I challenged your note at the foot of the R.M.’s decision, because from what Keys said I had reason to doubt that he would have supported you. The Rev. Mr Luxford and Mr Hamerton (two of the gentlemen who heard Mr Keys make use of the above words) can certify to what he said, and I am now content to leave the matter in the hands of the public, and Mr Keys to his own conscience.—l am, &c., W. Dale. Note. —The above statement by Mr Dale will enable his action in this unfortunate matter to be regarded in a more favourable light. He was evidently misled into sending his last “ challenge ” by a . belief that Mr Keys would not substantiate Mr Houghton’s statement. We acquit Mr Dale of any other motive than that of trying to sift the truth. A good understanding is now restored between Mr Dale and Mr Houghton ; and it is much better that this should be so. —Ed. Mail. THE MAJOR’S FIGURES. By a jumble of figures, Major Atkinson, in his letter, which appeared in your issue of the 18th instant, seeks to evade the point of my previous letter, wherein I sought to show that in contrasting the alleged expenditure of £106,000 in the Egmont district against £46,000 in Taranaki, he was not stating the case fairly. He is reported (and I believe correctly) in the Mail of the 7th instant, to have said at his public meeting in Patea : “ Let us go farther, to Taranaki. What do you think the expenditure has been in that district ? It has not been half what it was in your district. The whole expenditure in Taranaki district is only £46,000, against £106,000 in the Egmont district.” In my letter of the 10th instant, I quoted from an official return (the correctness of which is acknowledged) that £604,000 was charged against the provincial district of Taranaki out of loan, showing thereby that the relative expenditure stated by the Major was incorrect. His reply leaves in some doubt what the £46,000 to Taranaki represents. At his meetings (as will be seen by the above extract) he apparently wished it to he understood as representing the whole expenditure in Taranaki. In his letter he would seem to indicate that it was for

“ roads and bridges,” for he says, “ the two amounts [that is the £106,000 and the £46,000] are properly comparable, being expenditure for a similar purpose, viz., opening up and settling confiscated land.”

But under neither head can he justify his figures.

It would be absurd to contend that £46,000 represents the whole expenditure in Taranaki. The official return conclusively pioves that this cannot bo ; the New Plymouth Harbor Board alone has received more than the sum mentioned, and has forestalled three times the amount.

It is, on the other hand, impossible for the Major to show that £106,000 has been spent in Egmont, and £46,000 in Taranaki on roads and bridges. Among the very items quoted by the Major as making the total of £604,000 (the amount shown in the official return - ) will be seen the amount charged for roads over the whole Provincial District. The amount is only £134,908. It will puzzle the Major to squeeze £106,000 and £46,000 into that sum. The difference is £17,092 against his contention, even on those figures ; but as he has throughout referred to actua* expenditure, the difference is a great deal more. Out of the £134,908, only £122,068 were spent, the remainder being returned as “ liabilities,” so that the balance against the Major is, in round numbers, £30,000. I am glad to notice the Major admits that the £106,000 mainly represents money expended in opening up lands for sale, and that the expenditure was thus immediately recouped to the Treasury.—l am, &c., George Hutchison. Nov. 21.