PUBLIC OPINION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8171, 12 July 1912, Page 2

PUBLIC OPINION.

PICTURE SHOW. (To the Editor "N.Z. Time*.") Sir, —Slay I also voice complaint about non-admission to gallery of New Theatre? Last night I paid admission fee for four persons, aiiu after admission was told that the gallery being full we must wait until the end of the set —no wrong in this of course. During the wait, however, I counted seven persons who on* tered through the exit door and were admitted to the gallery. —X am, etc., • W. July 10. CHANCE FOR THE GOVERNMENT. (To the Editor "N.Z. Time*.") Sir, Work on the Timaru wharves was suspended yesterday because the wharf laborers refused to work with nonunionists. This is intolerable. What is the Government doing in the matter? Why docs the Minister of Labor, the Hon. W. P. Massey, stand by with folded hands?—l am, etc., PEACE. Brooklyn, July 11. ROUGH RUGBY. (To (he Editor "N.Z. Times.") Sir,—l have heard of some very extraordinary excuses made by players when they have been ordered oh' the field, but I think the most brazen in my experience is that given by Ashton, the Petone player, to the Wellington Rugby Union on Wednesday night. In his evidence, he said: "Before ho went out on to the field Mr Dan .McKenzie (chairman of the Referees’ Association) told him that he was going to be ordered off the field that day.” From your reporter 1 gather that Ashton said I made this statement in the dressingroom, and the Potono player is kind enough to say that I was smiling when I made the remark. Now, sir, 1 did not have a conversation of any sort with Ashton previous to the playing of the Petone-St. James match last Saturday. The only two players I conversed with in the dressingroom that afternoon, were Daly (Petone) and Moffitt (St. James), to whom I referred the teams printed on the official programme for verification. Ashton I did not see to pick him out from the other thirty players in the room, and his imagination must bo playing him sorry tricks when he can make such an absolutely untrue statement as he did at the inquiry held by the Rugby Union. On the Lambton - Railway Station, between 1 6 p.m. and 6.15 p.m., while wo were waiting for the train. I had a chat with Ashton, Hacfarlane. Hamsdcn, and another of • the Petone team, and my remarks on that occasion—after the game—will not even bear the construction put upon them by Ashton. 1 sympathised with him, but said that he had been given a bad name by the referee in the Poneke-Petono match, and the newspaper scribes had also criticised him severely, so that it did not surprise me greatly to see him pulled up with a right turn. X will h e charitable enough to think that Ashton, has mixed up this conversation with a mythical one that he imagined took place before the game: Tho phase of the matter from the Referees’ Association standpoint I will address you upon at a later date, if you don’t mind. —I am. etc., D. MoKENZIE. Wellington, July 11.