W.T. STEAD SEVERELY REBUKED.

New Zealand Mail, 21 February 1901, Page 12

W.T. STEAD SEVERELY REBUKED.

lii -the vilification of the British troops employed in the South African campaign, no’man (states the London correspondent of' Sydney “Telegraph”) has been more prominent than Mr W. T. Stead. Recently he was 1 at great pains to circulate a manifesto, purporting to be the work of a British officer.. It contained a aeries of the foulest calumnies against cforsoldiers, and many of its recipients have replied to Mr Stead in language which,: if his cuticle is not that of a rhinoceros; must have made the “good man” feel anything but happy. Stead favoured Sir Frederick Milner, M.P., with one pf hia broadsheets, and asked Sir Frederick's opinion thereon. He gave it freely, not t“6 only to Mr Stead, but to the . p>ress. i Inhis letter Sir Frederick says: “My. opinion is that you ought to be ashamed pf yourself for circulating so vile a .iffapde/of >your fellow-oountrymen. Yoij seeni: to have-made it your mission in'ljfe; to .vilify.-your co-untry, and to slan- ' derthe»;brave men who have suffered and borne so, much for their country. It sepms to,/me a pity that you do not remove ypxjrself to France, and offer yourself to thp gutter-press, where you would undoubtedly be appreciated. As to the letter of of A British Officer/ I decline to believe that any British officer could so demean himself as to spread so gross a calumny against his fellow-soldiers without, living the courage to put his name aff/the end/of it. If, indeed, any British officer has stooped solow, I can only say that.he is a contemptible coward, and I fSbould like to have the opportunity of telling him so to his face ; but. in my opinion, the ‘British. Officer' does not live far from the offices of Mr W. T. Stead. , JPerspnally T prefer to believe the testimony of Lord Roberts, Sir Redvers Bpller, and other brave Generals, as! to the conduct of our soldiers in South Africa. I dontt know if you have taken the trouble feo rpadLord, Rob Gris’s touching farewell tolps troppswhen he speaks of the gallantry* the patient endurance, the good conduct and humanity of our brave soldjiors,/ If you have read it, arid it has not made you fell ashamed of yourself, »I fejar nbithing will. ” /No one ought,‘to object to honest criticism, ,openly made,, hut Stead and his followers are not honest. They pass oyer Lord Robprts’s tribute to his troops

in silence, but give the widest publicity to vile stories against our soldiers without making the faintest attempt to inquire into the bona fides of the men who supply these abominable yarns. Consider just one little story which was circulated widely by the Steadites, namely, that of the* criminal assaiult on Dutch women by troopers near Dundee. It was as circumstantial as neecTToe, but though the names of the .dishonoured women were given, no attempt was made by Stead and company to verify the yarn, nor did they express the faintest suspicion as to its truth. On the contrary, they put it forward as Gospel, and made it a peg whereon to hang sermons on the iniquity of Tommy Atkins and his officers. Other people, (howe/rer, did take the trouble to make inquiries on the spot, and they discovered that there was not one grain of truth in the stny, and the father-in-law “of one ot the alleged victims swore an affidavit to the effect that the woman had been in his house at the time of the supposed outrage, and that no British troops had ever been within five miles of the house.’ But the Stead gang continue to circulate this and similar stories as evidence of the British soldiers’ vileness.