The 'Report.'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 20, 17 May 1900, Page 3

The 'Report.'

(«) The 'report', of Slattery's committee is, in all reason, a singular piece of work. The • original ' report (Mr. Graham informed us) was a speech delived by him at one of Slattery's meetings. This was taken down in shorthand by a member of the Phonetic Society. It was next transcribed into long-hand and typewritten. The type-written copy constitutes the report, which Mr. Graham courteously submitted to us. We learn from the stenographer that a carbon copy of this waa supplied by him to the Guardian editor, and, presumably, formed the basis on which he built up the »xlitorial note that compels us, both in self-defence and in defence of our Catholic fellow-citizens, to write the present criticism. Mr. Graham explained to us at both our interviews that he was not aware that a copy of the report had been placed in the hands of Rev. W. Curzon-biggers. (b) In both his interviews with us, Mr. Graham distinctly and in express terms disclaimed strict accuracy of statement in the report. He explained that he delivered the speech which constitutes the report with very little previous preparation, and repeatedly urged that allowances should be made for a certain looseness of statement in the spoken parts. (r) Many vital statements made by him in the course of hia report were seriously qualified in conversation with us by him after his attention had been drawn to their incorrectness. (d) The report, though given in a public hall, was manifestly not originally intended to receive the publication it received from the Guardian, nor for inspection by persons of a critical turn of

mind. (1) It is dated ' 10/4/1 1100 ' A copy of it was fas we learn from Mr. Graham) handed to Slattery. The document was in existence 10 days before Slattery left Duned'n, and yet it did not then get the lierht of publication here. (2) We have already referred to Mr. Oraham's statement that the copy which was submitted to the Guardian editor was thnwn to him without hi« (Mr Grnham's) knowledge. (.'!) Despite his marked courtesy io us, Mr. Graham absolutely declined to allow us to copy the report, even in shorthand We, however, made extracts from it here and there without protest on his part. (<) The report is an uncritical tangle of inaccurate statements, wrong inferences, guesses, etc. Almost from beginning to end it ia irrelevant to the charges whicli we li.ive tiiaJe and arc prepared to sustain against Slattery and his female companion. And our real position with regard to the wretched pair — as staccd publicly in our newspaper and pamphlets and repeated by us personally to the committee, in the presence of other witnesses, on April .") — has been overlooked in the report in an altogether wholesale fashion. We may regard it as a moral certainty that this report is now in circulation in Tasmania as part of Slattery's literary repertoire. Ia any case — no matter by whose act, for that i« no concern of onrs — from the moment that such a report as that of Slattery's committee received publication here, it behoved us to set the true Ftite of the ca'-e fully and eff >ctively before our readers and the general public.