ABSOLVED.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18575, 30 November 1920, Page 4

ABSOLVED.

A certificate of good character is flourished by our morning contemporary. It has obtained from Mr Massey an Assurance that he was not referring to it as one of the unpatriotic newspapers which criticised the compulsory loan, and tho Primo Minister has also assured our contemporary's Wellington correspondent that the real Binner that he had in mind was the '' Lyttelton Times." It will be gathered from this (either that Mr Maesey does not read our contemporary or that he has no yery high opinion of its influence. The '' Lyttelton Times " has been favoured .with ]\lr Massey's disapproval for very many years and has no complaint to make on that score. But in regard to tho ridiculous reference to patriotism &nd the loan, wo are entitled to ask what the "patriotic" newspapers have done to help the flotation- Can the Prime Minister produce any glowing eulogies of the loan from the columns of the Reform Press? Our morning contemporary explains naively that a Reform newspaper can criticiss Reform without incurring any odium, but if a Liberal newspaper even quotes the came criticism, that is proof of inten-

tion to be unpafcriotio and unfair, a oatering to the "revolutionary element*," and proof of an "unsocial" tendency. The corollary is that a Reformer is necessarily a patriot, and a Liberal is, also necessarily, unpatriotio; that oriticisin is fair or unfair according to its source and not according to its tenor, and that the Reformer may flteal the horse while the Liberal must not be Been looking at the stable. It would seem that the Reformero want a -monopoly not only of Government, but of opposition.