}
*
583
extremely busy community few of the public had taken the trouble to study the report and the comments made upon it. The Press accepted it en bloc in spite of the fact that it is inaccurate in many statements of fact and is open to the criticism of being biassed in some of the opinions it expresses and generally unjudicial in tone.
3. I took no notice of this attitude of the Press and of a large section of the public, until I learned that at a meeting of the Unofficial Members of the Executive and Legislative Councils to discuss what steps should be taken on the Commission's Report, Mr. E. A. Hewett had declared that he had been assured by Sir Matthew Nathan that the latter was in favour of all the recommendations in the Report except that relating to the abolition of the Administrative Head of the Department, and that therefore obstruction to the adoption of the Commission's proposals must emanate from me.
4. As soon as I learned this I understood the reason for the suspicion above mentioned, and I determined to make a full statement of the intentions of the Government, as at present advised, and to accompany it