MR SEDDON AND MR RICHARDSON.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 55, 6 March 1900, Page 2

MR SEDDON AND MR RICHARDSON.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In last night's issue of your paper you inform your readers. that Mr Seddon refused to receive a deputation if Mr Eichardson accompanied it. This high-handed procedure does not concern me so much as it does the meetings of citizens who carried the resolutions unanimously on my suggestions, and appointed me as one of the deputation to present them to him. But as a matter of fair play I think | that I may ask you to allow me to say that I have read to large audiences in this city letters of recommendation from the present Premier of New South Wales, Mr Lyne, who has known me in public and private life for eighteen years. Other gentlemen have known me over thirty years. They all agreed that I was reliable, straightforward, and above suspicion. Only recently at the firebell meetingMr Rodgers, one of the members of the bowling team who recently visited ; Auckland, told the audience that he had known me personally for about '■ thirty-five years, that ■ I had always \ been, no matter what business I was engaged in, a fearless opponent of the liquor traffic that in public and private life I was absolutely reliable, | but that as the world went I had one fault, and that was I persistently refused to court popularity. These characteristics or peculiarities may not be understood or appreciated by some politicians, nevertheless I fail to see that possessing them I have anything to be ashamed of, even if 1 had to submit to a rebuff at the hands of Mr Seddon. Does Mr Seddon not know that there are other laws on the Statute Book for dealing with me if I slander or libel any respectable citizens, which he says I do. Why do not the parties who say they are aggrieved move in this direction? I do not claim any peculiar privileges not common to all other citizens.—l am, etc.,

WILLIAM EICHAEDSON.