A GUILTY CONSCIENCE?

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 141, 11 December 1902, Page 4

A GUILTY CONSCIENCE?

The reference which the Premier is reported to have made at the Putiki Pa yesterday to his notorious Papawai speech is, or rather would be in any one but Mr. Seddon, most surprising. Its evasive character will be quite plain to any one who will compare it with the actual facts set forth in the article we published on 24th November last. He still asserts in general terms that he was misrepresented, but he fails altogether to meet our challenge and state specifically who misrepresented him and what were the precise errors either in local reports or in cable messages sent out of the colony. This wriggling and twisting can convince no one who is cognisant of the circumstances., Mr. Seddon has done nothing to disprove the statements made in. our article of the 24th ult., and talk such as that he indulged in yesterday, not only misses 'the point, but has the appearance of an attempt to mislead the Maoris. Mr. Seddon seems to forget the paroxysms of .Imperialistic fever which attacked him just before his departure for the Old Country, and now that his mood is saner he may possibly have* persuaded himself that he could not have us«d the bloodthirsty language he did at Papawai. Unless he is prepared to give chapter and verse to prove that he was misrepresentedj and to explain th« discrepancy between his Australian repudiation and our report of the proceedings — a report for the accuracy of .which our representative is fully prepared to vouch — he had for his own reputation's sake better leave the subject alone. Vague and reckless charges of misrepresentation will not bridge the gulf between Seddon drunk with Jingo frenzy and Seddon sobered by knowledge of the view the world takes of such utterances made by a responsible Minister of the British Empire to a protected race, which we are professing to civilise.