CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 108, 3 November 1939, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE

PRIVILEGED CRITICISM

(To the Editor.) Sir, —You ' have published another outburst from the Hon. R. Semple in which he says, "Such comment from a Magistrate in a sheltered position, without my being able to defend myself, is quite a departure from the ordinary principles of British justice." All that the Magistrate did was to express the hope that there would be "no more of these addresses by Ministers and things like that." But only last year Mr. Semple himself, from his sheltered position in Parliament, made a violent attack on me by saying that I was "too vile in character to be called a woman." He undertook to repeat his statement on every public platform in New Zealand Not only did he not do so, but he de-1 clined to accept my direct challenge. to repeat the statement outside his sheltered position. When a Magistrate makes a~ miidj criticism of a Ministerial address, this (according to Mr. Semple) is using a sheltered position to take "an advan-j tage of a public man" which he "resents bitterly." But when Mr. Semple used his Parliamentary privilege to broadcast an attack on my character, and honour, which I resented bitterly, he denied me the opportunity of taking j a libel action against him. —I am, etc., '(MRS.) E. L. STONE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I read in your paper that Mrs. Semple is to open the new Ngahauranga Gorge Road. I fully appreciate the good work the Minister of Public Works has done, and I am sure the* opening ceremony could have been made more fitting if the services of Wellington's oldest inhabitant had been asked to cut the ribbon. The opening of this road is to coincide with the Centenary celebrations, and it would be nice to see,some of the old identities be given the chance to open this beautiful new road which they knew as a rough bush track.—l am, etc., , PIONEER.