South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1831.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2477, 26 February 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1831.

Tukkk is a is a publication called the Australasian Insurance and Banking .Record” which has correspondents in the various colonies, and which professes to give moderately accurate information respecting the financial position of colonial institutions. Whether wilfully or through ignorance, or from gross carelessness this journal with the high sounding title has of late given itself over to the propagation of reckless and barefaced falsehoods. As an illustration of- this we quote the following choice extract from its February number: —“From time “ to time 1 have noted the extra- “ ordinary extravagance of some “of the local Harbor Boards at “ Tiuiaru and Dunedin, as also of “ the various municipal authorities “ throughout the colony. In their i! own particular way, these institu-

!: tions have run far ahead of the “ colony, as a whole, in point “of in debtedness, and the total “ amount must be reckoned in mil- “ lions.” The above information is assumcdly obtained from the New Zealand correspondent of this “ Banking Record.” ‘So deliberately, however, are the facts distorted that ic is almost incredible that any individual could be found in this colony capable of circulating statements that are so contrary to the truth, and so likely to mislead strangers and damage New Zealand in the estimation of people at a distance. If the correspondent in question is not, like his correspondence —utterly fictitious, it is desirable that an effort should be made to pin him to his assertions. A good lie may be enjoyed, or at least tolerated, if it is only free from malice, but falsehoods like these that wo have quoted, circulated through a serious journal like this “Banking Record,” are out of the region of humour. A correspondent who can perpetrate such air absurdity as to allege that the Timaru Harbor Board, with £50,000 to its credit, is indebted to the extent of millions, is either a rogue or a fool. The celebrated Tom Pepper was a harmless kind of idiot, and Baron Munchauser, and the author ol Gulliver’s travels, were amusing in their way, but they were simply retailers of harmless fiction. But rogues and fools, such as the “ Australasian Insurance and Banking Record ” appears to have in its employment, are dangerous if allowed to he at large. Some years have elapsed since we perused any statement so mendacious. The portly Mrs Brown in her comical way has been retailing some rather grim jokes and exaggerations about New Zealand and the Australian colonies, hut we can afford to pity rather than condemn the old lady seeing that her colonial experiences were not financially a success. But in this instance we have a correspondent supposed to be ou the spot, writing down public institutions in the wildest and most slanderous fashion imaginable. That such contributions should find their way into the columns of a journal that pretends to bo reliable, shews a great want of ordinary supervision, and both the proprietors and conductors arc to some extent amenable. As the credit of our harbor is to some extent concerned in a matter of this kind, and as the statement, if allowed to pass uncontradicted, is likely to injure this part of South Canterbury, the Harbor Board, we submit, should he perfectly justified in demanding the name of the mendacious sianderer and a full retraction of his damaging and untruthful assertions.