THE PERSONAL NOTE.

Southland Times, Issue 19396, 10 November 1924, Page 4

THE PERSONAL NOTE.

This morning we publish a letter from the Rev. F. J. Tylee of Dip ton, on the subject of the War Memorial containing a wealth of argument which is sufficiently strained to be self-destructive; a letter that is not without an association with irony in view of the fact that “Justice,” with whom hfe is pleased to agree in putting forward his idea of a “complete list,” proposes to eliminate the names of fallen soldiers who came from outside of Invercargill. Mr Tylee has gone out of his way to be unusually offensive in his letter, and we do not intend to ignore the insult he offers. In the face of our definite and, unequivocal assurance to “Justice” that our first editorial reference to this subject was not written in “defence” of the Committee of Ten, Mr Tylee says shortly that he believes it was. If Mr Tylee holds these views he might have shortened his opinion of the editor of the Southland Times into one word of four letters, but probably he has not paused to weigh the effects of his word. Mr Tylee adds to this gracious estimate of the Southland Times the insulting suggestion that the editorial to which he refers was written by a member of the Committee of Ten. In view of the opinion he cherishes of the editor of this journal, our reply that the editorial was neither written nor inspired by any member of the Committee of Ten, or by any person connected with that body directly or indirectly, will not carry much weight with him, but we deem it advisable to give this answer to protect our correspondent from the deductions he would probably make if, treating his letter as it deserves, we ignored its insulting terms. We regret the introduction of this personal note into the discussion, accompanied by the entirely unwarranted suggestion that we have assumed any attitude of superiority in this matter. For the rest we prefer to leave Mr Tylee until he thinks we are worthy of entering into a discussion with him- ,