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Date: 1850-04-04
By: The Globe
Citation: “Misrepresentations of the Examiner,” The Globe (4 April 1850).
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MISREPREPRESENTATIONS OF THE EXAMINER.

We regret to observe that the disingenuousness of the Examiner becomes every day more marked; that the manner on which he discusses the topics of the day becomes still more unscrupulous and unfair than ever. In replying yesterday, to our remarks of the 28th ultimo, our contemporary copies the following extract from the Globe:—

“We were told last week that a “clear grit administration” was at hand, and the very men to compose it were exhibited to our astonished gaze; but now, it seems the summit of their ambition is “not to impair their (the Ministry’s) influence in the right path, but to strengthen it,” and all they modestly propose is, “that if the present ministry do not carry their pledges into effect, others will.’”

The Examiner tries to show that the words used above, as “the summit of their ambition,” are put into the mouth of the Examiner, when no such words were used by that paper. We readily admit that the language should have been more distinct, but the Examiner knew well that the words “their ambition,” were not and could not be intended to be applied to a journalist, and that by “their ambition” was meant the Calebite party’s ambition, and that the words quoted were from the official Calebite resolutions at the Brooklin meeting, published alongside of the article from the Examiner, which we were reviewing.

The next little piece of trickery on the part of the Examiner, is in reference to the extract we published from the Toronto correspondence of a New York paper, in which Dr. Rolph and Malcolm Cameron are spoken of as the leaders of a new party, destined ere long to be “doubtless the principal party in the State.” The Examiner has the assurance to insinuate “the strong probability that the pretended extract was a forgery.” Such a style of argument always recoils on the heads of those who indulge in it, and we shall not return it. We cut the extract from the New York paper, which was either the Herald or Tribune, and neglected to mark on it the paper from which it was taken; but we shall use means to set that matter at rest. But the Examiner has another explanation of this New York extract:—

“It happens to be within our knowledge, that a Mr. Brown of the Glove has for a long time been a Canada correspondent of the New York Tribune. Whether he concocted the extract, for the purpose it has been used to serve, the editor of the Globe must be aware.”

The wickedness of these insinuations will be better understood when we state that the two assistant Editors of the Examiner share between them the Toronto Correspondence of the New York Herald and Tribune, and that one of them undoubtedly wrote the very extract on which this discussion is founded. The allusion made by the Examiner is to a series of letters written by Mr. J. G. Brown, now sub-editor of the Globe, while residing at Montreal, and which appeared in the Tribune, under the title of “our Montreal anti-annexation correspondence.” These letters were discontinued several months ago and long precious to the publication of the Annexation letter we have alluded to.

One other point. The Examiner says:—

“Where,” he (the Globe) enquires, did we represent the ballot as a revolutionary measure?” We will tell you. The Globe gave a list of what it called “practical questions,” amongst which the ballot was not included: declaring that the “practical measures” had been put into the Markham “programme as a cloak for the revolutionary parts of their scheme.” Here we have the Markham programme divided into “practical” and revolutionary measures. The practical are enumerated, one by one; the ballot was not amongst them; it belonged to the other order—the revolutionary. By what kind of logic the Globe will escape from this position, remains to be seen. The Globe repeats the same question respecting an elective Legislative Council that he asked on the subject of the ballot; and the answer we have given to the one applies to the other.”

The Globe will need very little logic to “escape from this position”—for no such position exists. It is not true that we “divided” the Markham programme “into practical and revolutionary measures”—the words we used were these:—

“Many of the principles enunciated are held by the entire Reform party, and must undoubtedly be carried out—but of some of them, as the Examiner says, “the present ministry individually have never been the advocates”—and we sincerely hope they never will.

“Elective institutions from the head of the Government downwards—Universal Suffrage—no property qualification—Biennial Parliaments, and fixed elections—embody the whole difference between a Republican form of government and the limited monarchy of Great Britain. The adoption of these principles would simply be a revolution.”

Were not the revolutionary topics “enumerated one by one,” plainly enough here? How could the Examiner pretend to misunderstand our language? Is there a word here about ballot or an elective legislative council? Having commented on these revolutionary topics, we went on to show what were—not practical measures as opposed to revolutionary, as the Examiner would make it appear—but “practical questions on which the Reform party of Upper Canada are generally united and which we have always contended for.” We missed out ballot because the Reform party have not been generally united upon it, and because we have never as yet contended for it. The little capital the Calebites have to go upon, needs no further evidence than the exertions they make to fasten opinions upon us we never expressed.