The Outlook is particularly vexed over the fact that the meeting of Presbyterians in Knox Church on the 4th inst., at which a resolution was passed in favour of the closing of hotels at 6 o'clock, was not more fully reported. The Rev. Mr Balfour's speech, it says, "curtly dismissed in a brief paragraph in the Dunedin newspapers, might, if newspapers had any regard for the right proportion of things, have been printed in full on the front page in the largest possible type.''
Our acknowledgments are due to our contemporary for its brilliant suggestion as to the prominence that might, in respect of position and type, have been assigned to the report of Mr Balfour's speech if the daily newspapers did not so deplorably lack a sense of proportion.
We confess, however, that we should have been more greatly impressed with it if the Outlook, being fortunately possessed of a highly-developed sense of proportion that is denied to the daily newspapers, had put its bright idea into execution in its own pages.
So little, indeed, does the practice of the Outlook accord with its precept that we have looked in vain through its pages this week for any report of Mr Balfour's speech. It has simply ignored it in its news columns! The Rev.
Mr Balfour himself will, we are sure, acquit us of any intention or desire to report what he said at the meeting, to which the Outlook has referred, in any other than an adequate manner.
It is simply not the case that the report of his speech was ;;curtly dismissed'' by us "in a brief paragraph''.The report occupied some 50 lines of our space, representing probably 300 words or more.
The NZ Tablet also
To a recklessness of expression, such as we have just noted in the Outlook, the other religious weekly that is published in Dunedin adds a coarseness of vituperation which renders it difficult, if not impossible, to enter into any discussion with it.
The New Zealand Tablet, which has, as we observed yesterday, lately developed a strong sympathy for the Sinn Feiners in Ireland, who are openly expressing a hope that Germany may prove successful in the war, attacks us this week in savage terms because, apparently, we paid it the compliment of quoting, certainly with some surprise, its description of the course of events during the past two years in respect of the Irish political situation.
People who know the Tablet, as it is at present conducted, will not expect it to deal soberly with the Irish question, or, indeed, we fear, with any other question.
Profitable whaling
The Marlborough Express states that the whaling season is now in full swing, and the Tory Channel party had a busy and profitable time last week, at the end of which the total number caught since the commencement of operations stood at 10.
On Monday, three more "hump-backs'' were captured, and the total was increased to 13, which was one more than the total for the corresponding period of last year.
Yesterday the three boats each made a capture, so that the aggregate now stands at 16. The whales are stated to be much larger and in better condition than those captured last season.
- ODT 12.7.1917.
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