Correspondence

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42745, 8 July 1905, Page 2

Correspondence

vVe do not ho'd ourselves responsible fo. the opinions expressed by our correspondents.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In continuation of my letter of the Ist inst., I desire, with your kind permission, to further criticise the statemetns of the person from Te Aroha West. Before doing so I would in passing note that, in exposing vulgar slanders to public odium, I have undertaken a very disagreeable task. In newspaper controversy of the better sort, in which the question at issue is fairly provocative of divergent opinions personalities are almost eliminated. Dialectical enemies may be personal friends. In the present case such compensations are wanting. As between reasonable persons there is no question at issue, since all such unite in condemning folly, slander, and injustice. And with all the desire in the world to observe the amenities of epistolary warfare, one finds difficulty in dealing gently with a person who, brazen and unashamed, champions those vices. It may be asked why, since pitch cannot be touched without defilement, and the pitchiness of my opponent is apparent, I should go out of my way to touch him. Several reasons may be given. I wish to protest with all the force possible against a case (the actual merits of which are unknown to me and irrevelent to my purpose) being prejudiced by newspaper correspondence of the baser sort I desire to show that such a case is usually inappropriate for discussion in the correspondence columns of a newspaper. And if the exigencies of country journalism prevent the rejection of effu sions which could never find admission in the columns of the Herald or the Star, I would urge that discrimination should be exercised by the readers of such effusions, and that judgment upon the actions of persons therein lampooned should invariably be reset ved. For without offence it may be urged that there is need for the enforcement ot this caution. Whilst it is true that the majority of the public love fair play in the abstract, it is also true that, having no special trainiug in the rules of evidence, and withal being busy, they are apt, by reason of their very abhorcnce of injustice'to judge unjustly, and, upon pnrbisau statements of which the unfairness is thinly disguised, to hastily condemn some, unfortunate wight who has not, and cannot have, the opportunity of putting his case before them. I find, Sir, that I have digressed at unconsoi nable length, and that, in consideration of the claims upon your space, I must further postpone the criticism I had in mind. I may refer also to the verbiage of •* Freedom ” —would that ho knew what the term denotes and oonnotos —though commenting either soriously or humorously upon such drivel is very much like attacking with Maxim guns a horde of savages armed only with wooden clubs and poisoned arrows, —I am, etc., Justitia.