ANOTHER ALLEGED POLITICAL SCANDAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17974, 29 June 1920, Page 2

ANOTHER ALLEGED POLITICAL SCANDAL.

SMITH'S WEEKLY AND ITS LIBEL ACTIONS.

(Fhom Oub Own Correspondent. )

SYDNEY, June 15. • ~!?(•, ™? st "iteresting political and journalistic developments of the past vear has been the establishment of tho new=paper known as Smith's Weekly. It wii founded last year by Joynton Smith, a verv wealthy owner of high-class hotels, and Hi ex-Lord Mayor of Sydney. H e can lay no claim to_ distinction in letters—ho is not even a journalist—but his native shrewdP ess him to select the right Cn P ? Per fo F, him - The money behind the founder enabled the paper, right f^ m Jh. m ° mCn t , of its establishment, to t,W '" np ? pnlar and institutions without fear or favour. It ha* especially attacked those suspected of profitaring—irrespective of whether they are big advertisers or not-and politicians beT+ associated with <cboodlmg. It has brought upon itself, in consoqucnoe, a really remarkable crop of libel actions, but it has secured an ecruallv phenomenal subscription Est. Tlie Z op l e generally seem to have extraordinarv confidence in the paper—a fact contributed to in no small degree by the comparative passivity of tho big dailies in the face of cases of gross profiteering, and of careless conduct-to put it mildly—on the pSHf S l6 p f peT haa especially attacked landlords who have driven poor people out of their houses so that, at this time of house scarcity, they might secure higher rente,, the great drapery shops whST in spito of the difficulties of the times' have to make huge profits (the amous house of Farmer and cS and AnsnT y +b °ivr V ° i?° Ineans escaped) a-nd the Ministers of the late Nationalist Government. It w Smith's Weeklv which -ecured the inquiry into the "Wheat Scandal" which more than anything elsT brought about the downfall of the Holmari ■Government; the same paper's agitation brou o ht about the recall of David Hall aiter that battered Nationalist Minister A^" g f p was safe m the refuge of th° and the Weeldv bv some sensational ''revelations" h^ Y n ow an official inquiry into the alleged scandalous maladministration of tho Sol diers Settlement Branch of the Lands Department Qno of the last acts of the Ilolman Government was to send the r ,™ tor T of this branch to a comfortable twlet in London. He is now beimr brought back to answer grav 0 charges. The charges tt Ash ford)° n AEnister Mr Ashford has issued a writ for £5000 gainst Smith's Weekly. That" paper the defendant, at present in at least three other big suits of a similar kind. Litigation of this kind is penerallv regarded bv newspapers as the high road to rain. But it seems to pay Smith's.