A QUESTION OF LIFE AND DEATH, AND THE LEADING AUCKLAND PAPER DUMB.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2464, 26 April 1888, Page 2

A QUESTION OF LIFE AND DEATH, AND THE LEADING AUCKLAND PAPER DUMB.

TO TIIK EDITOR. Sik, —In common with all well wishers of what is good for the people of New Zealand I feel deeply grateful to you for your leading remarks on protection which appeared in your piper of Tuesday, the 17th iust. lu contrast to your consistency and courage, in contrast to your telling and cannot be contradicted arguments in favour of free trade, and to your powerful sayings showing the evils of protection, what are we to think of the Auckland Herald ? Tiie Weekly News, which is the weekly edition of the daily Herald, in its Saturday paper of the 1-ith inst., like you, the proposed rises in the various articles which the Protection League wish the incoming session of the House of Representatives to carry, but unlike you it had not a single word, good or bad, to say on the subject. I think that the paper which aspires to be the leading paper of the city of Auckland has nothing to say in a question of such importance, a question which means the well being or not the well being of the country, a question whicli is of vital importance to the farmer, a question which is to decide whether the farmer is to have fair play or to be robbed, to think that this paper which pretends to be the farmer's friend, to think that this paper should have nothing to say on the subject, but should calmly pass over and ignore the whole question, shows there is something radically wrong. There is something wrong that a paper should go on without accepting its responsibilities, and this is what the Herald all along has been doing. I will tell the Herald what its responsibilities are. The Herald assumes to itself, and leads its readers to believe, that it is an institution which directs instincts, and leads the people in forming correct ideas on what is for the good of the country. It also assumes to itself and bids its reader to believe that it is- as a paper concientious and boldly straightforward, that what is good it will, at all cost, uphold, and what is bad it will at all cost condemn. But what do we .see ; we see that when there is anything debateable it cowardly sits on two stools and ignores the whole subject. The Herald is supported by the public upon the strength of what it assumes. Its responsibilities are to aot up to what it assumes. If it will not do so, then it is a curse instead of a blessing. This policy of the Herald, avoiding subjects upon which there is a division of opinion, is both contemptible and treacherous to the people; treacherous so far as by not sliowin" the good or evil of the question the p _lo are kept in ignorance of the merits of the question, and being so, are misled by ; interested people, and not being shown tho other or both sides of the question, they support the side put forward by the interested people who so plead their cause in a one-sided view, and in a view wholly to their own advantage, and to the disadvantage of the whole people. This sitting on two stools is pitiable, : and degrading, and insulting to the high and noble instincts of what a first-class paper should be.—Yours very truly, HAKAi-rn.