MR. MUNRO'S DENIAL

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 127, 25 November 1935, Page 13

MR. MUNRO'S DENIAL

MISREPORTING ALLEGED

PAPER'S EEJOINDEK

\ s (By Telegraph—Press Associations ; • DUNEDIN, This Day.

■''.'. Mr. J. W. Muriro has issued a state- .'!•' ment emphatically denying that any- £. thing in his speech could be so construed as to mean that the Labour ; ; Party—an avowedly constitutional poli-

tical party—would under any circum-

stances jesort to using guns or smash- .] ing anything, as attributed'to him. Mr. Munro further states that the report in the "Otago Daily Times" of Friday was a deliberate, unscrupulous misquotation of his1 speech. .: To this the "Times," in a leader, says, inter alia: "Mr. Munro was re-

ported competently and accurately by

; an experience^ journalist of unimz*i peachable integrity and should there- •"' fore have no grievance. But he was '; report*}, hence the trouble. As for . what he said, not all his piety or wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all his tears wash out a word . of it.' All the vociferations of his colleagues on his behalf must be equally superfluous and futile. When speakers ' make statements in public which they afterwards regret as unfortunate or injudicious or tactless, they not infrequently endeavour to make out that they have been misrepresented. Mr. *..'.• Munro goes a step further. Our re-

:•:« port he now declares to have been ,<:. a 'deliberate and unscrupulous' mis-

r-i. quotation. He does not venture to say .■■£ in what respect he considers it did him :.'■ an injustice. It is the business of the v. Press to be accurate in its reports. - Our report of Mr. Munro's speech was •:;: entirely accurate. Public speakers do '>;; not always feel the same obligation of ;- accuracy as lies on the Press. Even ■' I • Parliamentary candidates can be ',•: strangely forgetful of what they said -_ .'.' from a public platform."