'A STY FOR GUINEA-PIGS'

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 1 (Supplement)

'A STY FOR GUINEA-PIGS'

SHOULD CABINET MINISTERS'BE

COMPANY

DIRECTORS

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, February 17. Mr Seddon and other colonial Mm

isters who are at the same time directors of colonial companies will doubt less follow with some interest this

w^pk's debate, in the House of Commons on Mr MacXeill's amendment to the Address-in-Reply, that 25 Ministers in the present Administration held between them 41 directorships in public companies and that 'we consider the position of a public "company director to be incompatible with the position of a Minister of the Crown, and that the union of such offices i« calculated to lower the dignity of public life.'

In an amusing- speech, sprinkled iwith Irish bulls, Mr MacNeill called attention to the necessity of weeding1 out from the Treasury bench all the company directors and the foul associations unless that Bench was to become a sty for guinea-pig's, or a roost for the decoy ducks of fraudulent finance. Cabinet Ministers could not do justice both to their work for the country and for their companies, but the lax attendance of a Minister at Board meetings was never impugned, his name was enough.

Two of Mr MacXeill's shocking examples were both connected with colonial companies. The late -Mr Mundella,'though a decus, was anything but a tutamen to the X.Z. Loan and Mercantile Company. He was, in fact, a very bad type of guinea-pig, and when revelations transpired and the crash came, his conspicuous ignorance of the affairs of the company necessitated his retirement from the front Bench. 'If I shut my eyes.' said Mr MaeXeill, pathetically, 'I can almost see him

there now.'

Lord Selborne, the Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and a near relative of the Premier, is a director of the P. and 0. Company, which is subsidised by the Government, through the Colonial Office. Shining exceptions were Mr Balfour, Mr Chamberlain, and Mr Goschen, not one of whom was a

director

Mr MacXeill's speech roused a.- vigorous debate. Sir Henry CampbellBannerman, the witty Augustine Birrell, Mr Asquith and 'Labby' supported him, mainly on the ground that Ministers—like Caesar's wife —should be above suspicion, and that the rule laid down by Mr Gladstone that no member of his Government- should be a director of a company should have been followed by the Conservative Administration.

The leaders for the defence were the I Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr i Balfour. The latter, who by the waj I has never been a director of a comjpany, made a splendid defence of his j colleagues. Several of the Ministers, !he said, held large interests in comilL;U>te*>, whose business had. in some I of the instances specified, been Virtually created by such directors, and was as much part of their private concern as the estates they owned. He failed to see the logic of requiring a Minister with such an interest to give up his j directorship, which was insignificant i as regarded the pecuniary amount involved compared with his other interest. Further, the man who was a dii rector was known to everybody, and exercised his vote in the House in the full light of that knowledge; but the | shares and stocks he held were not known. If, however, a corrupt motive were possible, it would arise out of the shares and not out of the director-

ship. . . He also made a strong point by picturing the plight of a man of small private means, whose perfectly legitimate profession if might be' to conduct a? a director the work of joint stock companies, and who, at the same time, might be eminently fitted to serve the State because of his commercial knowledge. When his party came' into office, possibly for only a few months, Le would have the alternative of depriving himself of a very large fraction of his Hying for the rest of his life, or giving up the hope of a. successful political career. Mr Balfour laid down two principles which should guide Ministers; first. that no man ought to hold any office in which he had the slightest suspicion that his own integrity of purpose, his own straight arid direct line of conduct in the public interest, would be deflected by, one hair'sbreadth either to the right or to the left; and, secondly, that no man ought to hold any office, other than his official office, which would trench upon the time which ought.'properly to be given to his official work. While Mr "Balfour stated that he did not believe that any of the members of the present Cabinet were likely to violate1 either of those two essentials, he made no special defence of Lord Selborne's connection with the P. and 0. Company. Seeing that Lord Selborne was one of those most vigorously attacked,Mr Balfour's silence'is somewhat significant. As the question was; not made a party one, Mr MacNeill's amendment was negatived by a smaller majority than the Government usually secures, the figures being: For, 143;. against, 247. The force of Mr Balfour's arguments must appeal to everyone. It is not the Ministers who have a genuine interest in a company who are objectionable as directors. The practice that really needs stamping out and that hasbeen discredited'by the Jabez Balfour and Hooley disclosures is that oi Cabinet Ministers, M.P.'s, or private individuals in good positions acting as mere guinea-pigs in companies in which they have only a fictitious interest and lending their names to the front page of prospectuses to entice the easily gullible investor.