CORRESPONDENCE. MR TURNBULL’S HUSTINGS’ SPEECH.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2715, 1 December 1881, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR TURNBULL’S HUSTINGS’ SPEECH.

[To the Editor.] Sib, —I was one of those who heard Mr Turnbull's speech at the hustings yesterday, and glad I was that at last he had an opportunity of lashing the “ Timaru Herald ” according to its deserts. But for your own journal and the “ Lyttelton Times ” public opinion here would be completely barked by the “Timaru Herald.” Anyone differing from its views, or rather those of its writers, are sure to be snubbed either by an insulting editorial comment, or in some other shape. Let this pass, however. What I wish to say a few words about is with regard to the “ Timaru Herald’s ” threat this morning to take “ legal proceedings ” against Mr Turnbull for his outspoken speech—spoken in pure Anglo-Saxon, just as John Bright himself speaks. I shrewdly suspect that the sting lay in his remarks that he (Mr Turnbull) had “ never crawled on his knees to the bar of the House to be whipped and flogged the same as the special correspondent had.” Now this brought to my mind a report in “ Hansard,” 1876, No. 29, page 623, where it is recorded that Mr Wakefield made a most abject apology to the House for correspondence he had sent to the “Timaru Herard.” It is too long to quote, except where he says ;—“ If by any rashness or any ill advice I have done wrong, I admit it frankly, and I ask this House in all true faith to forgive what I believe was an utter wrong, a mistaken thing, and a thing which I certainly in my public or private capacity shall never do again.” Those of your readers who wish to read the whole apology can do so by referring to the num per of “ Hansard ” as above. Ever since Mr Turnbull went to Parliament he has been badgered and hounded on through the columns of the “ Timaru Herald.” No wonder then that he at last stands at bay and speaks out his bitter mind at such foul treatraent.

No man ever did more for Timaru than Mr Turnbull has done, and because he has always steered an independent course and refused to be dictated to by the “ Timaru Herald ” and a miserable clique, who arrogate to themselves the right to dictate public opinion, that paper and that clique can never say anything fair or good of him. — Yours, &c., “TRUTH.” Timaru, December 1, 1881.