“LIGHT AND LIBERTY”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8525, 15 September 1913, Page 6

“LIGHT AND LIBERTY”

The September number of the organ that carries tho inspiring title of “Light and Liberty” makes entertaining reading. As usual, this publication. which is issued by the “Reform” League “in the interests of good government,” devotes considerable space to showering tho “New Zealand Times” with compliments. Onr criticisms, it is remarked, “have a strong flavour of tho tap-room,"’ we are “mendacious,” guilty of “reckless misrepresentation,” and many other things most painfully reprehensible. Wo ought to feel absolutely crushed. Mr Simpson, the Government’s appointee on tho Westport Harbour Board, concerning whose career a great deal of information has been published recently, seems to outdo us, however, in the favour of “Light and Liberty.” He is described in this organ devoted to “the interests of good government” as “an honest, hard-working citizen” whose character has been “dragged in the mud” by the scandalous and reckless M.P. for Nelson! Mr Simpson, it is urged, has “suffered so much indignity” that it would be very wrong to rob the Westport Harbour Board of his services; indeed, we are told “that, ‘convictions’ notwithstanding, be should bo given the opportunity he is receiving of showing what he can do in the public interest.” When wo find such philosophy in a journal “issued in the interests of good government” it is melancholy to read, under the heading of “League Activities,” that “the subscription list is not mounting up in the ratio it should,” and that “quite a number of people have been receiving it”—the journal, not the subscrip-tion—-“for the past three months without signifying their- intention of becoming subscribers.” .Really, this is most depressing when_ quoted as a sample of “league activities.”