31 JULY 1920, Page 2

We cannot see that justice has been done to this

distinguished )fficer by many of the newspapers which had given currency to the falsehoods. Surely acknowledgment of error, however unwitting, and reparation, even though it could be only verbal, were required. Nothing could be done to bring back the dead to life or to save the bloody results of calumny, but the memory of Colonel Smyth should have been care fully relieved of suspicion. The Daily News of Tuesday accepted as accurate a report of Colonel Smyth's speech which it had seen in a Sunday newspaper. We do not know which Sunday newspaper it was, as the Daily News followed the tiresome practice of withholding the name of its contemporary. The Daily News, however, went so far as to say that the " immediate publication of such a report would have at once cleared Colonel Smyth." It is a satisfaction to read those words. Apparently the report in the Sunday paper was even more exculpatory than Sir Hamar Greenwood's statement.