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Auckland Star, Volume X, Issue 1736, 7 September 1875, Page 2

Our contemporary the Cross has replied to our challenge of yesterday respecting the wilful falsifying of a telegram of the Press Agency. We gave the text of the telegram as it was transmitted from Wellington and received in Auckland. Thus " Sir George Grey, log. : "He for one would assist the people in such a course as that taken in the United States." And we gave the telegram as tampered with and wilfully forged, and so inserted in the Cross "He for one would assist the people in such a course as that taken against the mother country by the American colonies" and our contemporary has the audacity to say " we confess we can see little difference." Any one can see that the original telegram is capable of a dozen applications, not one of which might savour oi rebellion against the Crown of England ; and that the forged telegram in the Cross is only capable of reference to the American revolution ; and our contemporary attempts to gloss over the forged words by saying that it intended to " clearly convey to the reader the full meaning of their intent." But the furthei explanatian of the Cross is more deserving I still of being borne in mind. It endeavours to exculpate itself by saying that it did not do the forging itself; it merely " received and uttered," and that it found the counterfeit article already with the " Unfortunate Man." The subterfuge is a sorry one, for it simply shows conspiracy, and poor "George Jones, jun.," whose name has been used in Wellington to pass false telegrams, which he subsequently disowned, is now brought out to shield the Cross. Whether the Cross is guilty of having resorted to the sorry trick of having the forgery made by another hand or not is immaterial. The forgery was perpetrated, and there is no denial of it; for from the telegraph office may be obtained the Press telegram as it was originally sent to Auckland, and there is not a word in it about action "against the mother country," nor about the "American colonies." That the forgery was wilful and malicious is beyond any question ; it is but another illusstration of the class of operations that are at work among us to delude and mislead the public and to excite them against those who are fighting the battles of the people. Our contemporary tries to be facetious about our having "swathed ourselves in the mantle of peace," whatever that may be. But we deny that we have uttered one word disloyal to our beloved Queen or to the Empire. But our contemporary with his masters will persist in representing that resistance $o Dr Pollen and his corrupt following is hostility to the Queen, and that disruption from Southern control and rebellion against Colonial Government injustice mean the severance of connection with the Empire. This is the game played just now against Sir George Grey. At one time he is a Popish plotter, at another an Irish Home Ruler, and anon ho is an American Revolutionary. Anything or everything to make

him look hateful. It may be congenial work this to the Cross and to those whose views it lives to uphold. But to ordinary humanity it appears a very dirty kind of business. It is known that there is not a man in _$Tew Zealand more loyal to tho Crown and Empire of Britain tban Sir George Grey, and his declarations of hostility and threats of resistance have only had relation to the unconstitutional and tyrannical conduct of a corrupt Colonial administration To that he has threatened " resistance to the dfeath," and we do not hesitate to Say t;_at he will in his resistance be surrounded by the willing hearts and the strong arni3 of the people of Auckland.