BILL DRAFTING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXI, Issue 8444, 11 August 1911, Page 6

BILL DRAFTING.

'„,-.• Some Opposition papers have scented a "job" in the fact that a sum of £369, has been paid out of "unauthorised expenditure" to Messrs Adams Brothers, solcitors, Dunedin, for "services in drafting the Licensing Bill" of last session. As one journal remarks: "The Crown has a very able and experienced law draftsman. The Crown Law Department is at present a very strong department numerically, and we should imagine quite able to cope with the work. Why, then, should an outsider and one so intimately associated with the Prohibition party be called in to assist?" For it. is assumed that the work was chiefly done by Mr A. S. Adam,, one of the brothers aforesaid, who is well known as'an ardent prohibitionist, an ex-president of the New Zealand Alliance,, and the author of the able booklet in reply to Professor Salmond. Most people will agree that if the Government required assistance, no abler man than Mr Adams could be found to draft a Licensing Bill. But, was assistance really required.; and, if so, why ? Mr G. W. Russell has done well in moving for the production of all papers relating to the payment of the £360, and it is hoped they will be forthcoming, since even such a staunch Ministerialist journal as the Dunedin -'Star" is constrained to admit that there is "a prima facie ease for the' Government to answer."