THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1892. THE CHRISTCHURCH PRESS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2301, 5 January 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1892. THE CHRISTCHURCH PRESS.

In our last issue we published the scandalously personal attack made by the Christchurch Press on Mr Tworney, and the reply to it will be found in another column of this issue. In his reply Mr Tworney takes up only three points in the article. Ist, The crime of appearing before a Court of Justice : 2nd, The charge that he habitually disturbed Mr Rhodes’s meetings, and 3rd, The financial point as regards the duplicate taxation. regard to the first, readers of this paper need not be reminded that it originated in harmless banter at the expense of Mr Ivess, and that there was really nothing in it. Every one in Temuka knows that there is no truth in the scandalous charge that Mr Tworney has been in the habit of disturbing Mr Rhodes’s meetings, and if Mr Rhodes had acted honorably he would have contradicted it. It is not a nice tiling for any one to be represented as a disturber of public meetings, and it is not fair of Mr Rhodes to allow any one to remain under such a stigma when he knows it is false. As for the public question involved in the dispute it has now been well threshed out, and very little more is required to be said. It may be that the Act is not very clear on the subject, but we have the Premier’s assurance that that will be put right, as it was never the intention of the Government to duplicate taxation on any kind of property. This has on the face of it the appearance of truth. It is not reasonable to believe that it was intended to double the tax on money lenders, while excepting them from the graduated tax.

The great feature of the article of the Press is its meanness and low tone. It contains nothing but a labored effort to make Mr Tworney look small in the eyes of the public, but it has had a different effect. As a matter of fact Mr Tworney has received a telegram from one of the leading men of Christchurch, congratulating him on his reply to the Press, and he has also received private letters to the same effect. The language used in the article is very low, being principally made up of “ slang.” It is easy to see that the society in which the writer of it moves is not very select. However, that is neither here nor there, and as our readers must have have had enough of it by this time, we shall dismiss it without further comment.