STRANDING OF WAHINE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26514, 31 August 1951, Page 8

STRANDING OF WAHINE

MR MCLAGAN REPLIES TO “THE PRESS” ,

“In its anxiety to divert attention from its admitted refusal to publish the news that the Wahine was sent away to a war zone with New Zealand troops on board and without radar, ’The Press’ has resorted to a counter-attack,” says Mr A. McLagan, in reply to a leading article published yesterday. “It accuses me of trying to make political capital out of a fact which can well be described in its own words as ‘damning to the Government.’ For ‘The Press’ to make such a charge only calls attention to its own political glass-house. Manufacturing political capital has for some time been the mainspring of its editorial activities

“In rebutting the suggestion of inconsistency in promising to ‘consider’ publishing at advertising rates a fact which it contends it would be improper to publish, ‘The Press’ admits a graver offence. It says that while promising to ‘consider’ publication it had no intention of publishing. In other words, it was only deceiving its correspondent, only fobbing him off until after the election. Is this one of the ‘common decencies’ to' which ‘The Press’ has referred, one of its ‘proper and accepted 'practices’?

“Using a well-known trick of the editorial trade, ‘The Press’ says it would be improper to speculate upon the causes of the wrecking of the Wahine—and hopes its readers will imagine that I have done so. On the contrary, I have refused to speculate upon either the causes or the facts of the wrecking of the Wahine. All that I have done is to add one more fact to those which ‘The Press’ itself had already published. The fact which I added is one which ‘The Press’ was so desperately concerned to suppress —to suppress for a political reason for the purpose of preserving the Nationalist Government’s dwindling political capital. "If ‘The Press' wants to scold anyone for speculating on the causes of the wreck, it might well turn its attention to the author of the following: ‘Pending the inquiry there will naturally be much speculation as to how such an accident could occur, and one of the first questions that will leap to the nublic mind is whether the vessel was fully equipped with the scientific navigational aids usual in modern ocean liners. In particular, it would seem that radar would make it impossible for a ship to strike an undisclosed island, since even objects small enough to be almost innocuous cannot escape the searching screen.' The quotation is from a ‘Star-Sun’ editorial of August 16 and would seem to indicate some difference of opinion as to the ‘common decencies’ and the ‘proper and accepted practices'.”