MATAURA ELECTION.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 670, 5 December 1899, Page 3

MATAURA ELECTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sin, — I have read Mr McNab's speech at Mataura, and can only express my disgust at a man who would stoop to such misrepresentation as he did there. In the first place, Mr McNab states that I said t>t Mabel that (I) one per cent profit was being made out of the Government Advances to Settlers ; (2) that I said £8,000,000 had been squandered ; (3) that I had arranged with the ' Standard ' and the 'Farmer' (two papers supposed to be controlled by a certain politician) not to report me ; (4) that the Mataura Freezing Works were as rotten as the Bank of New Zealand. In regard to No. 1 have bowled him out, and he does not now repeat it. No. 2, on the face of it, is an absurdity, and it is only a man who is desperate who would clutch at such a statement. I repeat I did notsay it. No ieference was made in the Mabel report to that effect, and dozens of respectable electors who were present, among them Messrs McDonald, Mclntyre, Wilson, Lyttle, Bridgeman, Young and others, can testify to this effect. Further, doea it not seem very peculiar that Mr McNab should now produce a letter from a reporter stating I used the words referred to, and yet that same reporter does not mention the matter in his report? The thiDg is almost too absurd for notice. No. 3:1 absolutely deny, and the fact that the ' Standard ' sent a reporter to my Croydon meeting must convince fair-minded people tbat my statement is beyond dispioof. No. 4 : I neither made this statement at Mabel (Mr Gilmour, proprietor of the 'Times,', confirms this) nor did I at Bimu, as twelve respectable men (two supporters of Mr McNab) have testified. Mr T. E. Gazzard, one ef Mr McNab's own committee, has also stated the comparison was never drawn. A man with any spark of honor or a desire that truth should prevail would submit to 'such overwhelming testimony, but Mr McNab is in a tight place, and if sticking at nothing is to win his seat, he ought to give me a close ■ run to-morrow. At Mataura he is reported as say.ing that T repudiated using the word regarding "thieving" at my Wyndham meeting. This is another of Mr McNab's falsehoods. The report of the ' Farmer ' (his own paper) sras : "Ifl am returned I promise you I'll get a fair share, of all that is going. If there is any thieving to be done (roars of laughter) I promise you I'll be there. I can do my share of that." I say this is untrue, and the latter sentence a libel. What- I did say was taken down by the xhorthaiui reporter for the ' O.D. Times,' viz., "If there was any thieving to be done, he considered it was his duty as their representative to do a fair share of that thieving." — (Laughter and applause). I say thatsentence is correct, but the one in" the ' Farmer ' a falsehood. In any case the remark was a jocular one, and was received by the audience us such. Any one with the ordinary share of intelligence can see the difference. My 6pponent evidently cannot, or is adopting tactics that are aa- insult to those whose votes he is tryiDg-to win. If is a clear case of It. J. Seddon personified. Mr McNab has given no account of his stewardship — he has done nothing to account for has given us no line of future policy, has not criticised my public actions nor my platform, but has put in his time over the marine scandal and the Transvaal, and criticising statements that I say on my honor as a man I never made. The Mataura electors to-morrow will set their mark of approval or disapproval on such unworthy tactics. The electors at the lower end who have known me for 18 years will pronounce .judgment in no uncertain sound. Electors of the Gore and .Mataura end can judge me on the platform, whether I am the men to try to win an election by quibbling. -I am, etc., I. W. RAYMOND. Gore, December sth.