NOTES OF THE DAY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3773, 10 November 1914, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

A SPEEDY “CLIMB-DOWN' 1 BY SIR JAMES CARROLL.

We are very plea-sec! to note thatthe charge wliieh Sir James Carroll levelled against the Reform Government at his Mangapapa meeting has with such expedition been proved quite groundless. What the Opposition candidate said, it will be recalled, was that the Government were taking men from the Ngatapa line and putting them in the Bay of Plenty, and taking men from trie Bay of Plenty and putting them into the Gisborne district. “This "would be done,” he assured his hearers, “to disfranchise these electors.” If such had been the case—«nd, of course, it is not so—it would have meant that the Government (had been guilty of nothing more nor less than corruption. How Sir James Carroll could hive co ne to nakofrch a suggestion without even troubling to check the statements it. is impossible to imagine. As a sequel he is to-day faced not only with an official denial of the assertion by the Minister for Public Works but this denial is also supported by the local Public Works authorities. It is, however, only fair to the Anti-Reform member to say that he, in turn, admits that there is no foundation for his statement. His withdrawal of the charge lias certainly been speedy, but it is not quite so graceful as we would have expected would have been the positon. What he says in effect is merely that "up to the present” nothing of the kind has taken place. That is not enough : the seriousness of the allegation demands a frank and complete withdrawal. We should say that Sir James Carroll would do well not to repeat any further reports or rumors effecting the good name of Mr Massey anti his colleagues unless and until he has had an opportunity of verifying them.