THE PATRIOTIC COMMITTEE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 145083, 7 September 1916, Page 6

THE PATRIOTIC COMMITTEE.

iro the editor. Six-, —Your leader of . Tuesday evening replying to my letter certainly will leave no doubt in. the minds of your readers that you consider your paper stands alone as a money getter. But I doubt whether many would car© to have your “00-operation” on the lines detailed in the article and as I now further elucidate them. I had not intended to bring these further particulars before the public, but your Tuesday’s article os such a huge bluff that I cannot let it pass. You ask “what on earth then has Mr. Wilson to complain about?” Only this, that Laving, as you state, offered to co-operate with the Mayor, which offer naturally was taken to moan that your fund .was identical with the official fund, you departed from your offer. It was you, Mr. Editor, who insisted that your paper would not allow us to have part of its general patriotic fund to remit to the Government as part of the official Now Plymouth Fund. You would not part with that money—though you wore of course “cooperating”—unless it was sent specifically not from the Patriotic Committee but from your paper. And what reason did you give for such a system of “co-operation”? That your paper had given a groat deal of free advertising and that if there was any “kudos” attaching to tho collection of patriotic funds you considered you were entitled to it 1M I admit, Mr. Editor, that that knocked mo out and you got your way. Then we came to the Wounded Soldiers’ Fund. Perhaps you had definitely abandoned the “co-operative” system by that time. Tho public was not altogether clear as to the relationship of your paper's fund to tho official fund, and I did not expect to have to lot them behind tho scenes, but you have asked what 1 havo to complain about and lam going to say. You purport to give tho facts concerning the funds, but material omissions are as misleading as actual misstatements. Your paper did not intend to work with the Patriotic Committee in collecting money for the Wounded Soldiers’ Fund. That'is a fact. Another fact is that your paper refused to recognise that tho Patriotic Committee was entitled to exercise control over the moneys paid into your paper’s office, until 1 wrote to the proprietor of your paper that unless tho rigid of the* committee to such control was admitted by him I would give tho public a ebanoe of giving thoir views on the position. Your proprietor wisely climbed down, but even then we had evidence of your desire to act independently of the committee in your assumption of the right to invest the moneys in your hands—a right which oven the committee did not have, since all its funds had been transferred to Tlie Provincial Association for administration." No, Mr. Editor, tho committee has not had much to complain of, has it? You will, of comae, have the last say, but I can leave it to tho public to judge whether the committee have had your support or otherwise—--1 am, otc., J. B. WILSON.

[lf tho subject of this letter were merely a pensonal matter of no public concern wo should bo inclined to dismiss it by just reminding Mr. Wilson of a certain character in one of Shakespeare's plays (if ho reads Shakespeare), called Dogberry. But it concerns the handling of trust moneys and as it contains offensive insinuations wo havo thought it necessary to, reply in our leading columns.—Ed., T.H.]