SECRET PLEDGES

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 12, 9 October 1928, Page 13

SECRET PLEDGES

Sir, —Wit li reference to a letter headed “Secret Pledges,” and signed “Consistency,” in your issue of this moruiug, I desire to call your attention to a similar letter over the same signature which appeared in your issue of August 6, 1927 — fourteen months ago. This anonymous personal attack was thought so valuable by the “wowsers” that they had it reprinted ami broadcast. I stated at that time, and I now repeat “that I am not either a member nor an officer of the Sports Protection League,” and that I had nothing to do with its policy. It may be of interest to your readers to know that while your correspondent. “Consistency.” true to the standards of “wowserism,” hides his identity behind a nom de plume in the columns of your paper, a similar letter of August 6, 1927, appeared in the “Otago Daily Times” of December 14, 1927, over the name of “W. D. Polson, lion, secretary of the U.T.R.C.” I had the pleasure of calling the attention of tlie editor of the “Otago Daily Times” to the manner in which his journal was being exploited by these people, with the result that he put the following footnote to my letter: “The letter in our issue of 14th inst. was almost completely a transcript of the letter in ‘The Dominion’ of August 6. Had we known this at the time, the letter would not have been inserted. —Ed., ‘O.D.T.’ ” I feel confident that it is not your wish that the columns of “The Dominion” should be used for this type of organised personal attack.—l am, etc.. R. A. ARMSTRONG.

Wellington, October 8. [lt is difficult to keep trace of letters published in other papers, but it is our practice to decline “circular” letters of the nature complained of when they come under our notice.]