AN OUT AND OUT "THUMPER."

Wellington Independent, Volume XVI, Issue 1616, 10 September 1861, Page 2

AN OUT AND OUT "THUMPER."

Our pen would be kept pretty constantly going, were it our practice to expose the mistatements of the Advertiser. Of late its shafts against the Superintendent and General Assembly members have been too feebly sent, to do them or thenparty the slightest harm. At a time when the Superintendent and his colleagues were striving to ousc a ministry who had done us all the injury it could, and replacing it by one desirous of promoting our welfare, the public have turned with disgust from the spirit of constant petty antagonism which our cotemporary has displayed. We have been content to let it have its spiteful little say- unheeded. In a time of local quiet like the present, we should have been treating it with an importance it does not deserve were we always to be noticing its falsities ; but if a cur will keep on yelping to the annoyance of everyone, it must not wonder if it gets a cudgelling for its pains. The following extract from the Advertiser's monthly summary is of such an impudent character, so barefaced an untruth, that we should fail in our duty to ourselves were we to allow such a disgrace to journalism to pass unnoticed.

The principal members of the Provincial Government still remaining at Auckland, nothing is done or attempted to be done, for the advancement of the interests of this Province. A Bill authorising the Superintendent U>' erect a Toll-gate at Kaiwarra was passed by the Council, but since that time we have heard nothing of it. One Toll-gate will not be sufficient for the object intended ; and though those who use the road do not object to contribute a toll towards keoping it in an efficient stale of repair, they require its repairs to be properly attended to. and from the proceeds'of a single Toll-gate this.could not be effected.

The Advertiser must be guilty either of gross ignorance or gross wickedness in penning such a statement as the above. If it really does think that a Bill for the erection of a Toll-gate was passed last session — if it really does not know that the Bill never passed, but was withdrawn — then it displays such an ignorance of the local matters about which it is always carping, as totally to unfit it for the direction of the public mind. When a journal displays such palpable ignorance about what takes place under its very nose, it is no wonder that it misleads its readers in matters of graver consequence. Those who put their trust in such a blind leader will be sure to fall into the ditch — they cannot help it. If however, it is not ignoi-anje which dictated the, above statement, but having exhausted all its white lies it invents an out and out thumper from sheer wickedness, then there is no other course open for us but to shame it into better behaviour — and, if such an exposure as the present will not have the desired effect, all we can say is that it must be past shame and we abandon the case as hopeless.