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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 402, 23 September 1876, Page 2

It has come to our knowledge, in a needlessly round about manner, that the storekeepers iu Gisborne identify the Editor of this journal with—even if they do not accuse him of being the author of —the letters which have recently appeared in the Standard on the subjects of “ Cheap living ” and a Co-operative store and this groundless surmise is rendered with more ompluisis than correctness in a letter from a “ Grievance Monger " in yes-t-rday s Herald. There are some, too, we believe, who hold to the opinion tint, as we have admitted those letters into our columns, we, by inference, endorse the statements they contain, and are held amenable for their consequences. A reply can. hardly be framed to meet the peculiarity of such an error. It is one of those erroneous views that men do sometimes lake of public matters, when they view them from one stand point only. We are no more allied with the authorship of the letters alluded to—which have been furnished each by a separate writer —than the Goodwin Sands are allied

with Tenterden Steeple. At the head of our correspondence column stands the seventy ped information that “our columns “ are open for free discussion ; but we “ do not hold ourselves responsible for “ the opinions of our correspondents.” What, in the range of the universe could be fairer than that, we would ask ? Opinions, facts, and general statements, no paper can logically be responsible for, simply from the many contradictory ones that often appear from different writers, on the same subject. If an Editor were to refuse any and every “ opinion ” that he did not personally agree with, he would generally be short of much interesting matter, and he would either lay himself to a charge of inconsistency, in professing to leave his columns free to all alike, while he rejected the views of correspondents, opposed -to his own, or of. sacrificing principle to expediency. Editorial letter writing is a thing unknown to the Standard. When we have an opinion to express there is very little doubt left on any one’s mind as to whether it emanates from the Editor or not; he lias his own column at his disposal, and to ventilate a question in the shape of a letter, palmed off as the production of another person, is a rank imposture, and species of beggarly meanness which this journal is not yet reduced to, and, under its present management, never will. It has been a characteristic of the Standard, and one which has taken deep root in the community, that it has ever occupied an impartial position, and meted out justice when in its power to do so, perfectly regardless of all inferior motives. We know well that some must be offended at the things we insert, while others would swell the list of “grievance mongers,” if we did not insert them ; therefore, as it is impossible to please all, the best plan is to “ do the thing that is right,” ‘and fear not. We give the storekeepers, and those who feel aggrieved, the “free” use of our columns to show where our correspondents are wrong, and there is not much denial of justice in that ; and if their statements are incorrect, they will very soon right themselves; but to charge us with a responsibility which is utterly ignored by all impartial journals, is only doing another wrong without redressing the original one.