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Oamaru Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 4996, 10 June 1891, Page 2

The Otago Daily Times and several other anti-Ministerial papers have been hauling the Speaker over the coals for his alleged utterances at Waimate. TJie Times bases its strictures on a portion of a paragraph which refers to the keeping of order in the House, which appeared in its own columns, and which purported to bo part of a Press Association message despatched by one of the Oamaru agents of the Association. The message, at it appeared in the Times, was not the message as originally sent. In its skeleton form the message read : " From what seen last session anticipated any disorder might arise be some older members." This the Times extended into "From what he had seen last session he anticipated that disorder would arise from some of the older members," entirely ignoring the qualifying words and giving to the message an absoluteness and significance which it never possessed. The telegram went 011 to state that the Speaker trusted that all would work together to maintain the good reputation for behavior for which the New Zealand House of Representatives was famous. As a matter of fact, what the Speaker intended to convey was simply that the labor members were less likely to be guilty of disorder than some of the older hands who knew the ropes much better, a conclusion in which he was amply justified. He imputed 110 deliberate intention of misbehavior to any party or to any individual and spoke purely in general terms. Had the Times properly extended the message telegraphed to* it this conclusion would have been self-evident, and its strictures would have been absolutely pointless. The fact that several other anti-Minis-terial journals also mutilated the message similarly to the Times leads to the unwilling conviction that the Speaker, as he asserts, has been deliberately misrepresented, and the journals in question undoubtedly owe him some reparation. We refer our contemporaries, in support of what we have said, to the Lyttelton Times and Wellington Post, which published the message properly extended.