THE VOUCHER AGAIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 254, 24 October 1905, Page 4

THE VOUCHER AGAIN.

The report of the Board of Inquiry into the conduct of the Post Office clerks concerned in the now celebrated voucher episode has been laid upon the table of the House, and its character is very much what might have been anticipated. The clerks have been adjudged guilty of various breaches of the service regulations, and Government has still to decide how to deal with the delinquents. We can hardly expect that the matter will be finally settled before the Royal Commission now proceeding with its investigations has reported upon the Audit Department; and we recur to this unpleasant subject only for the purpose of calling attention to the extraordinary tone and attitude still maintained by the members of the New Liberal Party. Messrs Fisher and Taylor are still determined to brazen it out, in spite of the immense accumulation of evidence against them; and they appear to believe that they are keeping up their public reputation and supporting their personal dignity by reiterating with mechanical regularity that they are not satisfied. Yesterday Mr Taylor actually had the effrontery to assert that the Board of Inquiry arranged it's questions so as to make the investigation serve political purposes; and Mr Fisher followed with similar, insinuations. This is bad enough in all conscience; bat ire should hardly have expected even Mr T. E. Taylor to venture to express dissatisfaction with the Royal Commission set up to examine into the methods of the Audit-Department. The Commission has very properly refused to order the production of documents which It dots not

consider relevant to its business; and Mr Taylor seizes upon this as a pretext for declaring that his protegees w_H v not get full access to the required papers, and that they will be once more "foiled" in their attempt to get at the information they want;_ -The country is pretty well used to Mr T.E. Taylor by this time, and we need hardly dwell upon the insolence of the imputation implied against Mr. Justice Denniston and his brother-judges. Apparently Mr Taylor expects the country to believe that the Supreme Court judges have now joined in the infamous plot 'which, according to him, has been concocted between the Treasury, the Auditor-General and the Premier to prevent the truth from coming to light. Of course, Mr Taylor's methods are ingenious in their very simplicity. According to the. ethical code of the New Liberals, to damn an enemy's public reputation all that you need to do is to accuse him of theft or fraud, demand that documentary proof of his crimes shall be produced, and when no such evidence can be discovered denounce Government and Ministry and Civil Service and Supreme Court for "foiling" the ingenuous "seeker after truth." Usually when a man is accused of an offence and no evidence can be found against him he is acquitted. Mr Taylor's notion of justice is that ih such a case the correct course is simply to assume that judge and jury are in league with the accused, and demand another trial. But, of course, the country knows by this time that Mr Taylor and Mr Fhher would never admit that they are "satisfied" with anything less than the production of the very evidence which competent tribunals have already shown does not exist, and cannot have existed. Still, it is a pity that -pembers of Parliament should so far degrade their office and bring discredit on parliaments ry life by employing the contemptible tactics adopted throughout this deplorable business by the self-styled "New Liberals."