A THREATENED BOYCOTT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1358, 8 February 1912, Page 5

A THREATENED BOYCOTT.

There was a report in tho "Evening News" (Christchnrch) of some meeting or other of the Christchurch tramwaymen, and a reporter, who was not allowed to go in, wrote his story about what ho heard outside l>eforo the meeting commenced. What ho wrote annoyed one George Manning, and he wrote to tho "News," protesting against the reporting of "some of the off-handed sayings of a few men congregated together to pass a few jokes amongst thomselves." But tho sting of tho letter was in the tail: "It would be no surprise to me, after reading the' report in ' your paper of our niornimr's meeting, if tho working men of Christchurch district were to commence a boycott of your paper, which it appears to most of us is opposed to the interests of the working classes, in bolstering up the interests of the capitalists and landowners of the Dominion." To which tho editor replied, • venturing incidentally an opinion as to wliy people bought ono paper in preference to another: "It is childish in the extreme for grown men to whine about a reporter's pleasantries in this fashion. What sort of stuff aro they made of? As for Mr. Manning's suggestion that tho "Evening News' should be boycotted because it does not please him,.we do not suppose that he or his fellow-unionists buy it because they agree with its views, but because they know that it is the best paper, and that they would be penalising themselves if they did not."