Yes— No.

Otago Witness, Issue 2323, 8 September 1898, Page 17

Yes— No.

to raa editor. . Sir, — It is a curious phenomenon, as curi- \ ous as common, that if men of certain type | got into a dispute with a man of my profes- | sion, not three words will have been spoken j before the minister will have his profe=sion I fiung in his face with more or less sarcastic relerences and contrasts. This sort of attack is unknown among gentlemen, but it is seldom neglected by the cowardly and mean. If his example were followed, how admirably Mr MacGregor's profession and his present title would lend themselves to whip the honourable gentleman with his own thongs everybody knows. If facts and reason are against a man, of course he will be against facts and reason. If you can't prove your disputed statement, prove something else, and people will believe you have proved something. In any case, abuse the other side. That will make them believe that you believe yourself. Now, my letter to which Mr MacGregor replies was written to meet a specific charge of "lies" made against me by him at the board's table. So completely has his charge been disproved by the simple, aud, now admitted, facts, that he needs h'<H n column to explain his own position, iam of raid the more light he throws on it tlio more unintelligible it will become. I reproduce the words of, your report, already quoted, which shows where the "lies" came in: — " Mr Fraser: The motion was moved by Mr Snow, but it was not his motion; it was Mr MscGregor's, and he gave it to Mr Snow. When they came out of committee Mr MacGiegor dissented Irom the motion. "Mr MacGregor : He is repeating misstatexnents. If he continues it I shall have to call them lies. "Mr Frasev : Mr Snow- will be able to bear me out whether this was his own motion or whether he received it from Mr MacGregor. "Mr MacGregor: It is untrue." What is untrae? That Mr Snow sot his motion from Mr MacGregor? That Mr MacGregor opposed in open board what members rndorstood he favoured in. committee? The&e facts are so incontestable thai Mr Mac(Jregor has to write half a column to explain his bearings to them — all winch he could havo done at the board, and not have left me with a charge of untruths in "relating facts that reeded explanation from him and not from me. In his letter, with most remarkable adroitness, Mr MacGregor now says the "lie" was my statement that the motion was "passed unanimously." And he devotes his usual vigour to prove the incontestable — as actually stated by me above — that he "dissented from it when we came out of committee," but dissented from it in the manner already i elated. Now, my point in designedly referring to the resolution as "passed unanimously," was this: As no division was taken (an important fact now admitted), and as the motion stood without a single note of dissent on the minutes, I held, and hold, that every member of the board was honourably bound to have stood by it, and not to have left the burdon of seven men to fall on one, And I put it to any public man who has sometimes to vote in responsible divisions whether he would not I had good reason to describe the motion as I did. I repeat that the standing orders declare a division shall be taken on the call of one member, and the division and names recorded, that this is the

invariable practice on every important motion ; that it wa? followed in every disputed point of this Waipori business ; further, ihat X\lr Snow says: "When Mr MacGrecor j handed me the enclosed, I was fully under the impression he agreed with its content.*. Litile did I think when we went into open board he would vote against it as he did. We were unanimous at the time." We havo now the I additional evidence of your reporter, who, by 1 what ho say.s and docs not say, confirms absolutely that T had good reason for the statement I made. On the point now in dispxite — »*hether Messrs Snow. Sim, and I had reason to bolie\c Mr MacGregor was with the motion — his evidence is with up. We have thon this evidence : I heard of no opposition lo the motion till we came out of committee, neither did Mr Snow nor iur Sim. And your reporter saj-& : "Ho docs not think Mr MacGrogor acth ely opposed Mr Snow's motion in committee. " Again, "When the board came oxxt oi committee Air MacGrcgor's opposition at, tliat stage did not seem to hr.ye been anticipated by some member?." Is not this con- " elusive proof Hint Mr Snow, Mr Sim, and myself had good reason to believe we were unanimous? Regarding Mr Harraway and IMr Gallaway, 3* our rcportor Fays: "They may havo given their voices against the motion as well as Mr MacGregor." They "may." This ' only shows, further, the hallucination at least three men are wider as to tho events that transpired that day. iJow on earth one is to j know that a member is against a motion drawn up by himself unless he "actively" op- ■ poaes it, or that others are a%ainst it unless they call for a division, I don't know. It 1 will take a good few columns of Mr MacGregor's adroitest fencing to clear it up. Abuse of me and swearing by the name of the chairman of the board will not explain it at , Now let us piece together Mr MacGregor's version of the affair. I beg your readers never to forget that this resolution is probably tho most important ever entered on the board's records, for it was designed to mean "summary dismissal" unless a paiticular order was obeyed. The question is, how did it get there without a division or note of dissent being recorded? Mr MacGregor's picture is that he and Messrs Gallaway and Hrrvaway opposed it both in committee and open board ; while I, on whose shoulders all the weight of the resolution eventually was dropped — I, "the man who had led the board into the ridiculous and untenable position, simply looked on." Moreover, I "seem to have thought Mr MacGregor was xjlsyiiig my game." Now, if I call to your readers' minds one astounding fact, they will wonder more and more how that resolution got there. For, by Mr MacGregor's version, only two men — Messrs Snow and Sim — were left to do battle ■ for the motion. There were only seven persons present, including the chairman. Here are Messrs MacGregor, Harraway, and Gallaway opposing — I sit and "'look on," and yet • this wondeiful resolution get there ! There j were only two me3i and a silent one to meet I next month a board of nine ! 1 We had, Sir, a Trojan war, lasting, I think, ten weeks, to find out how that door got there, in that luminous controversy, which cost the board, I believe, over £30 of public money, I I think all the public could make out was that 1 the door wns there at last. So about this now famous resolution. They will ne\-er know anything but that it is there, and that Mr .Reid's attitude of '^.Yes — No !" towards federation is as near as possible a description of the attitude of Air MacGregor and the Education Board towards one of the mobfc important I resolutions ever recorded in its minutes, j Unless "new matter" is introduced, I shall not trespass on your space and patience on this subject again. — I am, etc, P. B. Fraser. Lovell's Flat, Sept. 2.

Ye athletes, all who bike or run, Or row or box, or may have done, Know that of all the human ills You're subject most to colds and chills. But both will disappear, be sure, By taking Woods's Great Peppermint Cure. A Melbourne cyclist, going without a light, at the rate of 14 miles an hour, met his death by colliding with a cab. On Sunday morning (says the Danevirke Advocate), while nine cyclists were riding on the Weber road near the Manawatu Bridge, a bull j?ot on the road and trotted along 'in front of them. It was funny to watch the animal goino; at the dcmble and making pace for the cyclists ; but it was ever so much funnier a few moments later, for the bull did a right about turn and made straight for the wheelmen. Some left their machines on the road and fled to the woods, while others carried their wheels with them. All got safely away.