ACCUSATION AGAINST NEW SOUTH WALES GOVERNMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 8327, 19 December 1905, Page 5

ACCUSATION AGAINST NEW SOUTH WALES GOVERNMENT.

Agent=Qeneral takes up the

Cudgels

A Pretty Warm Controversy

(Received To-day, at 0.27 a.m.)

London, Last Night.

Mr T. A. Coghlan, Agent-General for New South Wales, in a letter to the Daily Mail ridicules the allegation of that newspaper that an attempt has been made by the New South Wales Government to muzzle its correspondent at Sydney. Mr Coghlan contends that during September, as the Mail declares, its correspondent truly stated that several farmers—namely three—had left New South Wales for Chili, but this apparently was transmuted in the Mail of September 29th into " a significant and susj] tamed exodus." Mr Coghlan adduces many proofs of the sincerity of his Government in the matter of immigration He denies that the Labour Party in any State of the Commonwealth had declared war on capital.

The Mall, in reply, maintains that its correspondent was threatened. It quotes a telegram dated September 28th, which is significant of a "sustained exodus," and protests against the suggestion that because the Mall did not quote the whole message it admitted that the portion omitted was concocted in London. The paper says Mr Coghlan ought to tender an ample apology for his gross breach of fairness in suggesting that part of the telegram was concocted in London.

[On Saturday we published a cable message to the effect that the Daily Mail had accused the N.S.W. Government of trying to muzzle its Sydney correspondent for telegraphing the truth respecting the prospects of immigrants, and declared there was only too much reason to believe that declarations published in England, to the effect that Australia was now anxious for settlers and immigrants, were only means for influencing the British investor in favour of Australia. It asserted that the Labour Party was trying to fetter enterprise, so as to create a socialistic Utopia.]