Hawke's Bay Herald. FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 1887. GIVE HIM THE KETTLE.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7718, 15 April 1887, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. FRIDAY, APRIL 15, 1887. GIVE HIM THE KETTLE.

TjiKHKisiißlory uxlniifc, well l.olrl oven if not true, lo tliu oll'uul llml a Jiislioii oll(!e stumbled aoroas a jMirfy of rough miners who wcru engaged in n peculiar conipetilipu, Tlie yisiioj) limilo imjuirius, ami '

learned that 'the miners hiuh'heVto decide \vlit> among 'them 'c6uM tell1;)ie greatest " crammer)" 'the successful competitor to

receWe a kettle as a prize. What the Bishop said and what the miners retorted are matters ot history. Those who have read the story, and who will also read rea,d this article, will sec the fitness of it

being headed with the le#end " Give Win) the kettle." Mi- Smith lias executed his annual war dance, has tortured the Queers English as is his wont, and has once more proved that; his forte is 'pronounced inability to state matters of fact. In his " speech " lie made a ii'iimber of assertions about this journal, a condition ot tilings we rive well used to, and seemed to think. 'that in so doing ho was performing the chief duty -of a member of ' the House. ' Our comment upon this is " Give him the kettle," and wo will show how just that comment is.- Had tho Herald in the past behaved ite lie asserted it had done we should Jeel ashamed, but as his statements were not even remotely truts We are obliged to conclude that he should feel shame.if that condition of mind is possible to him. Perhaps as the owner of a newspaper which to feels bound to canvass for he deems it his duty to attempt to disparage us by saying of us what is trot true. In any ease, ami whatever Ms motive, he said what was untune in every particular, as we shall proceed to briefly show. He said that "In 1579 the Grey Government were turned out, and the Atkinson Government) raised the ad valorem duties from 1 1 per cenU to 10.J per cent. Mr Ormbntl an'ci tile whole of . that party voted for the increase, yet •now the Herald professed to be Freetraders, though they never said anything about it then. The Herald now wrote article after article, all praising up Freetrade, but in those times they never uttered a word on the subject, simply because they supported the member for the time, and he could put on as .niatty duties as he pleased." That statement, With i the exception of the solitary grain of truth that Mr Grinonct Voted ior the increased Customs tluties, is absolutely false. This journal strongly, condemned the increases, and also condemned Mr Ormond for voting for them. Further, before Major Atkinson's Government took office, aud the Grey-Stout Ministry were proposing to take off the duties on tea and sugar, we strongly supported the proposal. This is a simple statement of fact which anyone can verify, and one that not only disposes <of Mr Smith's nntrue assertion about ,the ■ Customs duties as such, but that refutes his reiterated statements that the Herald supports Mr Ormond no matter what he proposes. We have upheld him when we considered his action worthy of support, but have condemned him when we believed him to be mistaken. We believed hint mistaken in 1878-70, we said so in plain language, and Mr Smith either knows this to be the case or he is proving his linfitness for tho position he cannot adorn by a most glaring exhibition of ignorance. Then by inference, by assuring his readers that the Herald always supported Mr Ormond, he asserted that we opposed Sir George Grey's land tax. That again is absolutely contrary to fact.' We have always supported a land tax, and we supported Sir George Grey's land tax. Mr Smith should' know this, since' at his meeting he boasted that he had read the Herald ever since he came to the district, and if ho did know it — why, "Give him the kettle." In a similar fashion, by first stating truly that Mr Ormond 1 voted for the property tax, and then stating untruly that the Herald always supported Mr Ormond, no matter what lie did, he insinuated that this journal had advocated such a tax. But the very reverse is the fact. Weopposedthepropertytaxand those who voted for it, Mr Ormond included, and what is more, we can boast of having opposed it consistently from the first moment it was proposed. So pronounced, indeed, was our opposition, that a promi' nentand respected' citizen who thought we were wrong attempted to convert us by a long series of ably-written letters which will be well remembered by our readers. Again, Mr Smith was pleased to say 'that the Herald had only been an advocate of Frcetrade since tho presonfc! Ministry got into power, and again his '< statement was not true. We have always \ been ardent and consistent Freetraders,; and have throughout denounced Protection and the imposition of Customs duties to that ' end, regardless of party. We studied and made up our mind on this subject long before Mr Smith had imbibed the small modicum of political babes' milk which", with an astounding capacity for misrepresenting opponents, forms his' stock-in : trade on the' platform and in Parliament. His audacity .is even equal to twisting and distorting facts not three months old. He accuses us of unfairness -to him in the charitable aid business, in reporting a meeting of the Board fully, and " sup' pressing " the fact that vouchers, for - the nioney expended by him were laid before the Board. To enable a fact to Lie ' ' suppressed " it must first bo brought out, but no one at the meeting in question ever referred to any vouchers in the hearing of our reporter, and we were totally unaware that any existed. Our report was a fair one, and therein lies our crime— Mr Smith prefers reports "cooked' to suit him and his objects. We did not utter one word of unfair comment, nor make one untrue statement. As a matter of fact we wrote several articles ion the charitable aid question, in which we

dwelt upon the danger of allowing the

administration of public charity to fall into tlje hands of one or two individuals. Tiiese articles were written before the

Board meeting referred to, and. before we

had the faintest idea that Mr Smith was acting as sole almoner to Waipawa and Patangata counties. When the facts with regard to Mr Smith came out we merely pointed to them as proof of the truth of our

previous contention. No doubt those articles hit Mr Smith very hard, judging

from the way he "squirmed," but the; were not directed at him nor at any pat

ticulnr individual. Mr Smith found the cap tit, put it on, and now excitedly declares the cap was clapped on his head by us, and that it did not fit — in fact, it

hurt him very much. At the next meeting of the Board Mr Smith attacked Mr Cohen for not referring to the vouchers at

,he previous meeting, and Mr Cohen, who

disclaimed attacking anyone personally, slated that he asked tlio questions he did because tho vouchors afforded no infonna-

ion. They simply stated that so-and-so

had received money, this being set oul ovor the signature "W, C. Smith." Il

therefore appears that Mr Smith is quite right in assuming that the vouchers in question were laid on the table at the

previous meeting, and thoy may have been referred to in a conversational way, but in any case there was nothing to "suppress" oven if we had been actuated by inotivus adverse to Mr Smith. The question was not one of vouchers signed by Mr Smith, but whether moneys forwarded to the hospital committee representing Patangata and Waipawa counties had not been dealt .with by the Waipawa County Council alono. Tho gentleman who referred to the matter was Mr Mackersey, and he had tho greatest right to do so, for lie is and was then the chairman of the County Council supposed to have expended moneys which wore never received by it. In a liko spirit of reckless vituperation Mr fcitiiifcli insinuated that we advocate the oauso of tlio largo SfiUftttei'S aikt absentees. Now, wo are no friends to unduly large holdings, having always held that great mistakes have boon made in land administration in the past.

JJnti that does not prevent us seeing that mistakes are being made now, and that irom one extreme the country has gone to another. Formerly laud was alienated in enormous blocks, but now it is being sold ' almost entirely in little potato- patches out of which a living cannot bo made, Our view is that' large and small properties should go together, so that the small holder may obtain partial employment on the larger estate, while the owner of the latter has at his door reliable labor, and is not; driven to dependence upon occasional swaggers. Then, as to our being the friend of absentees, we may montion one littlo fact— which Mr Smith has conveniently forgotten— in refutation of the charge. The llkkamj was 0110 of the Ihiil i«i>Wo in lliu colony to cull itltoiitjon

16theevils tif°absenteeism,-anil & slioffc time before Mr Smith first posed as a canJidato for Parliament, an article appeared in our columns in which the acreage in Hawke's Bay held by absentees, tho value of tho land, and the amount of money annually withdrawn to lie sjietit in England were dpjJfdiimittely estimated. IHioso figures, by the way, were supplied by one of the " Conservatives " Mr Smith is so fond. o£ denouncing, who ihad gone very carefully into the question, Well, indue time Mr Sniilli appeared on the platform, tils biggest " hit" was iiis denunciation of absenteeism, in support of which lie quoted certain figures. Those figures and- most 'of his arguments were simply taken from that article in the Herald, without"any alteration—and, of course, without any acknowledgment. " Give him the kettle."