The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1887.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 203, 31 August 1887, Page 4

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and Echo.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1887.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For tho future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Look at the matter in any way we please, the publication of the contents of a private letter from the Pre" mier to the Agent-General is an unpleasant business that ought to be cleared up. But when the publication } as in this instance is manifest, has been made with the deliberate intention of damaging the Government of which the Premier is the head and Sir Dillon Bell the official representative in England, the matter bears a much worse complexion. "Whether Sir Robert Stout was discreet or indiscreet ill writing it, is a secondary consideration. In private correspondence between gentlemen, which is covered by the sacred code of honour, men are not wont to weigh their words too carefully, and an unguarded phrase may easily be twisted into a meaning that waj3 never intended to be conveyed by it. Our morning contemporary, in discussing the subject to-day, expresses the opinion that " the Agent-General has somewhat incautiously let slip the intimation conveyed to him by the Premier in order to help the position of New Zealand in London, and not thinking that his statement would get back to the colony in timetobemadeanyuseofintheelections. . . . The Agent-General must, in an incautious moment, in some situation when the credit of the colony was in peril, have made it known on the Stock Exchange that the Premier, although fighting a general election, knew he was, certain to go out of office." Such a suggestion is based upon a very low opinion of Sir Dillon Bell, or else it arises from a peculiar mental aud. moral obtuseness in the writer of the article, who indeed appears to be singularly unconscious "of the gravity of the charge which he is airily bringing against a gentleman holding the highest office the Government has at its disposal. Mr Bell, solicitor, of Wellington, more justly appreciates the position in a letter which he has addressed to the " New Zealand Times," declaring that such a disclosure could only have been made by a gross betrayal of confidence. Mr Bell avows his firm belief that his father will be as greatly shocked and amazed as the Premier is at the disclosure ; aud we firmly believe that this will prove to be so. No man with the instincts of a gentleman would use a private letter as the " Herald " insinuates Sir Dillon Bell has used this i letter, nor has any crisis arisen on the .Stock Exchange to warrant the supposition that a villainous breach of confidence was justifiable in order to avert it. The present Government have distinctly repudiated the intention to engage in further extensive borronving, and Sir Dillon Bell was in a positior? to give the Stock Exchange an assurance that no matter which party were victorious in the elections,acourse of retrenchment and restricted expenditure would be'pursued. Party leaders have been too firmly pledged by the country on this score to leave any loop„ole of escape. Coming to the contents of the letter itself, the fuss that is being mao!e over it in certain quarters is absurd. Of course, we quite understand that the political enemies of the Premier will seize upon this poor scrap of a text to prejudice him, but the dirty .character of the channel through which the information must have passed before it could have reached the press leaves no doubt on our mind that it did not escape being grossly garbled in transmission. The version which Sir Kobert Stout has furnished to the public bears the stamp of truth on the face of it. Who would believe that the Premier, in writing to the AgentGenera] at the very moment when asking for a dissolution, would predict bis own defeat? That after alluding to the confidence entertained by both parties in the result of the election, he should jocularly add that if the abuse heaped on the Government by the Opposition press were believed they would be beaten, is neither very astounding nor particularly reprehensible. As Mr Bell justly remarks in the letter already referred to, the only subject of amazement in connection with the affair is, that such a contemptible use should have been made of a private and confidential letter. That it will succeed in its malevolent object, as. our contemporary predicts, we certainly do not believe. The elec-

tors of New Zealand will exercise their own judgment ivjthout regard to what may be said or done in London, and the letter will probably have no effect on the elections one way or the other. But if it should have any effect, it will be distinctly favourable to the Government. There are certain acts which come under the general definition—not elegant but expressive —of " skunkism," from which the true Englishman turns with loathing. This breach of confidence is so disgraceful that it is bound to defeat the object for which it has so palpablybeen committed. And when, in addition to the natural feeling of repugnance which the act itself will excite, there is added a suspicion of wire-pulling inEngland for the purpose of influencing the elections in this colony, the gorge of the electors is the more certain to rise with consequences the very reverse of those that were fondly anticipated by the authors of these shady tricks.