ELSIE WALKER CASE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 121, 18 November 1929, Page 12

ELSIE WALKER CASE

'MR. WILFORD'S INDISCRETIONS'

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

In an editorial, Saturday night's "Star" says:—"The reply made by tfie Minister of Justice to Mr. Cooney 's "challenge" in connection with the Elsie Walker case does not appear to us to clarify the situation. So far as the suggestion of a charge of blackmail is concerned it is hardly necessary for Mr. Wilford to assure the general public that there is at present no. ground for legal proceedings, but it seems to us unfortunate that the Minister should reiterate his reference to a definite sum as having been discussed at the meeting between Mrs. Thomason and Mrs. Bayly. Mr. Wilford seems to have no doubt that this sum was mentioned, but there is nothing in his statement to establish the circumstances surrounding the alleged proposal. Further, the Minister has completely ignored the most serious feature of Mr. Cooney's indictment, the alleged substitution of words in a certain letter. This charge is either true or not, and Mr. Wilford, speaking for the Department of Justice, can hardly afford to evade it.

"The whole position bears out completsly the protests that we have already made against these 'extra-judi-cial' proceedings. Charges of such a serious nature should not be made, more especially under the shelter of privilege, against men and women who have no opportunity of defending themselves effectively- or cross-examining witnesses and analysing the evidence submitted by their accusers. The ease for a further searching judicial inquiry seems to us to have been materially strengthened by Mr. Wilford >s indiscretions."