PUBLIC OPINION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 15862, 27 February 1912, Page 9

PUBLIC OPINION.

FROM YESTERDAY’S NEWSPAPERS. (By Telegrapli.) IN CAMERA. As regards tile present case, to speak plainly, we question whether the public will ever fully understand the ins and outs of this Payne-Dickson scandal, if they have to trust to the committee’s report, the subsequent debate in the House, and tho indefinite rumours controlled by the l< in camera ” restriction. Of course, tho evidence will eventually he published in full. Yes ! but the actual verbal evidence is not the only consideration. What about the demeanour of witnesses, the casual, hut often important, “ asides” of tho inquiry, the general atmosphere of the scene! Only the experienced newspaper mail, observing and recording at the moment, can give the public a true and vivid idea of the conditions.— Dunedin “ Star.” THE QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE. It is foreign to Mr Massey’s methods of party warfare to use what one of tho Labour members described as the weapons of political assassination, and wo suppose no one recognises more fully than Air Massey now does that tho production of this document, ail imperfect extract, as we have said, from a letter in his possession from an unnamed individual, was an offence against the ordinary canons of fair play. Even a politician who, .upon his own admission, makes expediency the test of whether he should or should not break his pledges, and upon his own admission had received what seems to have been tantamount to the offer of a bribe, and had not thought it necessary to expose the tempter, is entitled to fair play. The use that was made by Mr Maasey of this letter was not merely a breach of the rules that should govern the practice of Parliament and of society, it was also a serious technical blunder.— “Otago Daily Times.”