LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18322, 12 August 1921, Page 8

LEAGUE OF NATIONS

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I have read the report of Professor Pringle’s address on tile League of Nations appearing in your columns of the 4th and stn inst. I shall be grateful to Professoi Pringle if he will state in your columns, witn your permission, "‘the numerous errors and misstatements of historical fact” which he alleges he detected in my address delivered in the Hanover Street Baptist Church on tho League of Nations. In order to assist tho protessor in this matter, since it is possible that he did not take extended notes, 1 have taken the liberty of addressing to tho University a copy of The Sentinel, in which appears an article written by myself, containing the principal facts used by me in the address referred to. It is true, as tho Rev. Knowles Kempton has been gracious enough to point out, that I wag very tired at the time of delivering the address. Nevertheless, lam prepared to stand by tho facts as I stater! them on that occasion, and wUI await with interest Professor Pringle’s "ply to my invitation.

If, however, the professor’s resume of raj “argument” to his audience indicates in any way his perception of my “facts.” I need have but small concern for his opinion or judgment thereon. It is difficult to believe that an educated man could so misconstrue and distort* even a “socalled agrument” as the professor, in his zeal for the cause of the League of Nations has distorted my plain statements. ■ The speaker represented mo as having “denounced the League of Nations, because in it we (the British Empire) shall sit cheek by jowl with, the representatives of Catholic States.” I have never uttered such an absurdity. Upon this total misrepresentation of address the professor made a rhetorjcal appeal to the superficial emotions of his audience. My antagonism to the League of Nations as at present constituted —and that involves the League Covenant —is based upon grounds far broader than the professor would have his audience believe, _ and _is supported by names and facts which give pause to the attention of men of the widest understanding and 'knowledge of things political, even in the dominion of New Zealand.—l ain, etc., ' Howard Ehjott. Wellington, August 9.