THE PREMIER AND THE PRESS.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 134, 3 December 1904, Page 4

THE PREMIER AND THE PRESS.

On 28th June last The Times correspondent, in a, cable despatch forecasting political events, mentioned that a million loan for Public Works was probable. The Agent-General went to the expense of cabling this back to the Premeir, and a few days later, under cover of privilege of Parliament, Mr. Seddon, with great show of^righteous indignation, went out of his way to make an attack on the correspondent of The Times. "I regret very much," he said, "that Mr. Malcolm Ross, the correspondent of The Times, should, simply because I bad said

moderate borrowing was necßss&ry, telegraph to The Times that a loan for one million would probably be raised. There were no good grounds for this assumption, and 'it was done to injure and prejudice the credit of the colony." The Times correspondent does not bother to reply to Mr. Seddon's criticisms, being evidently quite content to let tie public judge as to whose statements are the more reliable ; but some weeks later he was able to cable to The Times that Mr. Seddon bad that session introduced into Parliament Borrowing Bills covering" 'an authority for a million — a fact which, as he stated in his cablegram, was interesting in view of Mr. Seddon's statement in June that there were no grounds even for the "assumption" that a million loan was "probable," and that the correspondent's cablegram "was sent to injure and prejudice the credit of the colony." Yesterday Mr. Seddon said he knew nothing about the floating ■of a million loan in London. To-day it is announced that a million loan has been floated ! No dou,bt Mr. Seddon will now apologise to The Times correspondent for the attack he made upon that gentleman under the cover of the privileges of Parliamentary debate.