The Colonels' Manifesto

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19693, 27 July 1938, Page 16

The Colonels' Manifesto

Sir,—While I looked on the views of "Plain Bill" on defence and on the colonels' manifesto as misguided, I did not for a moment suspect'that "Plain Bill" was a sort of newspaper chameleon who crawled into your columns in various guises. Plain Bill! It seemed almost synonymous with "Honest Old Bill." Who would have thought that that plain-dealing name concealed a rabid anonymous newspaper correspondent who had written over a long period under a variety of aliases the majority of the letters appearing in your columns in support of the Government, who under different pen-names was responsible for four of the seven letters appearing in Monday night's issue? And the effrontery of the man, after the treatment he has received, to attack, the impartiality of the press! This disclosure gives me courage to write again to point out that the subject matter of the colonels' manifesto has not been squarely met by the Government. Instead, it has been sought to divert public attention from the manifesto itself" to the action 01 the .colonels in publishing it. Now, two major-generals, six more colonels and several lieutenant-colonels join in a further manifesto in telling" us that our land forces are inadequate; in other words, we are not satfe. But will that convince "Bill"—we can no longer call "him "Plain"? Of course it will not. —Yours, etc., "RETURNED SOLDIER."