OUR BEWILDERED CRITICS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8655, 13 February 1914, Page 6

OUR BEWILDERED CRITICS

The squatters’ organ has followed the lead of the independent evening journal in grossly misrepresenting the attitude taken up by this paper concerning an ill-advised speech made by Lord Ranfurly to some Dungannon citizens who have volunteered iu certain circumstances to take up arms against constituted authority. His lordship, it will be remembered, tried to persuade the rebellious volunteers that in fighting against the King they will have tho Empire with them, and he suggested that the Premier of New Zealand and the majority of the Canadians were “ on the side of Ulster,” clearly and unmistakably conveying the impression that the head of the New Zealand Government is in sympathy with an agitation and a movement that can only he described in plain language as rebellious. AY© deplored Lord Ranfurly’s utterance. \Ye do so still. We aro certain that it is in every respect regrettable—exceedingly regrettable—that an ex-Governor of this country should have deliberately connected the present Premier of New Zealand with a campaign which its principals confessedly contemplate will develop into a ghastly and bloody civil war. To our mind, Lord Ranfurly’s observations were mischievous and indefensible. But because we have had the candour to say so we are charged by the independent evening journal with being “in a frenzy to leap at Mr Massey’ and by the squatters’ organ with having made “a wild attack ” upon the same gentleman. Really, we are quite at a loss to understand how our contemporaries, even with all their Tory prejudices, can have fallen into such an egregious blunder. W© liave neither mad© a wild attack upon nor a frenzied leap at Mr Massey. It is our contemporaries that have lost their heads in this controversy- We have confined our criticism to the noble lord who has claimed our Premier as a rebel partisan. Probably if wo could get Mr Massey’s candid and unbiased opinion on this matter, it would be found to be in entire agreement with our view that Lord: Ranfurly’s speech would have been infinitely better unspoken.