MR BOLTON ON THE DEFENSIVE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 933, 28 March 1882, Page 3

MR BOLTON ON THE DEFENSIVE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —With your permission I wish to make a few remarks on the leading article appearing in the Leader on Saturday last, 1 shall endeavor to prove that it was written to serve some personal end of your own, and further, that it was incorrect. It is the general conceived opinion, that the leading article in a newspaper reflects the opinions held by those who preside over the paper, who are not afraid to stand by what it states, whether they are or are not in the minority on any public question, apd should any change take place in the tenor of the articles, the reason is invariably given, thereby retaining the support of the public. But Sir, a newspaper soon loses its influence when it becomes the vehicle by which an Editor can vent his spleen to the harm of any individual, and where the articles written on any subject mean one thing one day and quite the opposite the next, or where ar editor to intimidate any person remarks, “ I will go for you. 1 ’ On Wednesday afternoon last you were so kind as to convey me the cheering intelligence that you “ had a good mind to go for me.” I thought when you made use of those fearful words that it was on account of something that I had done in the past, little thinking that you meant that I had to be very careful in the future, or that implied dreadful doom would overtake me. Now you have “ gone for me’’ I am placed, as it were, upon the defence. You stace that the Herald must have received an exaggerated report, and not thinking it advisable to publish it, put in the local instead. The facts are I sent the local to the Herald myself on Wednesday afternoon last. Owing to engagements I was unable to send the report until Thursday evening—that ( after the local appeared. So you must

now know that your “ we fancy we know how it occurred ” was only a fancy after all and. like a large number o l ' fa- cieg, ia directly opposed to the truth. I main min that (he local gives a fair report of the meeting, and the Chairman’s remarks to me, and about myself (a portion of which was reported by you) I am willing to leaive to the judgment of the public as to whether they do or do not appear of a stormy nature, and your statement that not one angry word was spoken is incorrect, and was evidently inserted to .please .some person or persons. Now> Sir, I wish to know what grounds you had for fancying that the report sent to the Herald was an incorrect one, under the following circumstances, namely—You did not attend the first meeting of the Committee, and therefore you are not in a position to know what occurred •; the second meeting you appeared, and reported far more of the unbecoming language used thereat than appeared in the Herald, ,so much so as to give serious offence to one member of the Committee j the third meeting took place in your absence, regarding which you are in pre. cisely the same position a? the first ; and the last meeting—which was attended by you —you have never seen my report of it and cannot have any idea what it contains. By your statement “ that the reports in the Herald have been the cause of all the unpleasantness,” X can plainly see that you have not a copy left of the Temuka Leader dated March —, in which a leading article appears advising the Committee to take things a little more quietly, to treat reporters as other bodies do, refusing to publish reports “ cooked” by the School Committee, furiously attacking Mr Mendelson (a member of the Committee) staling that only for that gentleman, the whole affair would have been passed over and forgotten, and then conies this remarkable confession, viz., “Wereported Mr Mendelson’sspeech, and this constitutes the head and front of o.ur offending” meaning that the resolution passed February 28, was passed owing" in a great measure to the T-EMUKA Leader fully reporting the disgraceful scenes gt a previous meeting It maybe your purpose in attacking me to show that yon repent (which is nest to Salvation), of having reported so fully, and of haying so far forgotten yourself as to write fhe articles in the Temuka Leader of March 4 and subsequent dates, but speaking for myself as a member of the Committee, I have and shall always en deavor, whether it offends or pleases, to give householders a fair and impartial account of the business transacted at the School Committee meetings, r right that they can demand and enforce. I fail to grasp the meaning of the word “ forbearance” which appears in your leading articles of the 23rd and 25th inst., if you wish to intimate that Mr Davis and myself have not as much right to express pur views on the various questions before the Committee as well as any other member of the Committee, be they whom they may. I can oJy pity your want of manhood, and remain, yours respectfully. Geo. Bolton, Tiraaru Herald Reporter and Member ot School Committee. March 27, 1882. P.S.— The Herald of today’s issue contains my report of the meeting to which not one word is added or taken therefrom, and is one more proof that your surmise is wrong.

[After reading the above letter no one will be surprised at what occurred at the meetings of the School Commitfee. The report published in the Herald yesterday is fearfully exaggerated, but of course it would be casting seeds on barren ground to argue the question further. What Mr Bolton says about this journal or its Editor we pass over, on the principle that it pleases him and does no harm, — Ed T.L-]