Our Melbourne Letter.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 2263, 8 May 1891, Page 4

Our Melbourne Letter.

/ ff he; end, p| a° notable libel action in connection- .with the house of G-oldsbrough, Mort & Co., Limited, has at last been reached, and the public are now in a position to judge pf the merits of the respective positions taken up by Mr Andrew Eowan and Mr^J. S. Horsfall in the dispute, which has extended over nigh two year's. This case— which has been much discussed throughout Australia — may be briefly stated as follows : — Prior to the close of 1889, Mr Eowan and Mr Horsfall were co-directors in the great wool firm already mentioned, but in consequence of Mr Horsfall's alleged hostility to the general manager, Mr Stewart, who had the strong support of Mr Eowan, and for other reasons not necessary to be referred to now, matters did not proceed smoothly, and in August, 1889, Mr Horsfall's name was removed from the directorate. He then joined arrival company, and issued to the shareholders of Goldsbrough, Mort & Co. circulars directed against the board, but especially aimed at his antagonist, Mr Rowan, whom he accused, inter alia, of having trafficked in the company's shares. Mr Kowan, in defence of his own character, replied in an able pamphlet, and after wiping away, by an array of facts and documentary evidence, the allegations made, he proceeded to deal, with no unsparing hand, with Mr Horsefall's conduct as a director of Goldsbrough, Mort & Co., and completely turned the tables upon his opponent. ;t I have taken an independent stand," concluded Mr Rowan in his pamph et, "in order that Mr Horsefall may take an action against me personally should he be inclined to test the accuracy of my assertions.'' Then followed Mr Horsfall's reply, reiterating his former allegations, and making others again it Mr Rowan and his co-directors of G-oldsbrough, Mort & Co. At this stage Mr Rowan, who had resigned his position on the Board iv order that the matter between himself and Mr Horsfall should be fought Jout single-handed, and not be associated with the firm with which he had been connected (acting on the advice of friends, who urged him to, bring Mr Horsfall up with a sharp turn), issued a writ claiming £25,000 damages for libel, and Mr Horsfall put in a counter claim for £30,000 damages. It was at first anticipated that the cases would go to trial by jury, but, by the consent of both parties, the Supreme Court referred them to the" arbitration of Mr James Service, M.L.C., Mr W. Halliday, and Mr W. Hay, and their decisions have just been made known. Briefly stater], they are that Mr Horsfall has failed to substantiate the allegations made by him in his pamphr let, the finding being, in short, that he did libel Mr Rowan, and that Mr Eowan, on the contrary, has completely sustained the charges made by liim in his pamphlet, and that he did nbfc libel (Mr Horsefall. £50 damages are awarded to Mr Rowan, each party to bear his own costs. This i isi undoubtedly, a clear win all ?Up£g the line for Mr Eowan, and it m.ust be eq ually gratifying to Mr Stewart, who' was in a great measure, bfapketed with Mr Eowan in the charges, now disproved, made by Mr Horsefall. The public may consider that, as Mr Rowan has secured a substantial verdict, it would have been more in accord with the usual order of things if the arbitrators had directed" Mr Horsfall to bear all the cos/ti/'bf the litigation caused, but this is, after all, a small matter compared with the victory gained. The storm is b'yer, and' now that Mr Rowan has vindicated the position he took up from the first, we may expect to see him restored to the directorate of (jbTfdsb^qu^h, Mort and Co., on his return from Rngland, whither he proceeded recently.

Bujtj the week iia-* beeu great in events in soine other respects- >*ota hlj, Mr Fran k Stuart has withdrawn his services from the Government. It is not quite clear in what the value of. those services consisted, though it has , been made manifest that Mr Stuart appraised them at a higher price; tha Q bis colleagues were inclined to attach to them. Mr Munro, whett constructing the cabinet, was an^ous to secure the support Young Australia, and thought he had effected a iCleyer political stroke when he conferred upon Messrs Stuart and Peacock the title "Ministers" without, however, assigning any work for their prenti.cq, h^nds to do. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two consisted in the assumption that both these gentlemen would be content witn the empty honour. As far a~s!;Mr' Peacock is concerned, he has nos\y,ei" manifested discontentment yfitK nis position, and that he has not done so. is W citc^.matapce which, greatly redoundsTto Jbw jeredifr With Mr Stuart the" case is" different. He had taken a fancy to, Mr Langridge's old shoes', .oblivious, apparently of the difference in the size of the respective feet, and has shown all the petulance of a;- spoilt, ill-trained child, because hewaW not ailpwed to try them on. Andjliecause Mr Munro has handed tbe.ra-o.ver to Mr Turner, whom they wiltffifc itnueh better, Mr Stuart has r^sigWcid.^ This^ after 'all, 'may turn riufetp^ev^jft iict of ti;u4 patriotism, tilQttght.f.not" intended as such. Re* lifeved -.'from the worry * of he #ili c haye 7 'more time to : devote to

improvements in the manufacture of forty-two shilling tweed suits. For, what says the Catechism ? — " To bear no malice nor hatred in any heart. Not to covet nor desire other men's goods (shoes?) but to learn to labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God to call me."

Then, ns if these things wen* not enough, we have the Sargoo J-Queens-cliff-Easter-holiday incident. I suppose there is not a man in Victoria who has not felt a thrill of horror at the thought of two men having been blown to atoms at Queeascliff through misadventure in working one of c he. guns. Anr, we all want to know how it happened, and who, if anyone, was to blame. We want a full enquiry, and we want to sheet home to the delinquent, be he living or dead, who was responsible for the mishap. The Minister of Defence is the proper officer to obtain this information for us, but unfortunately the Minister of Defence has made a blunder at the outset. He, like Frank Stuart, is more conversant with Manchester goods than with public affairs, and wants to measure the two c >aimodities by the same yard-wand. This is a pity, because there is a slight difference between the science of war and the ethics of Fiinders-Street. It was the Minister's business to find out. how the accident happenel. He appointed a Board of Enquiry, and so far he was right. But he wis wrong in ordering the same Bo wd — seeing how i r was constituted — to enter upon an investigation that, it was not competent to conduct. If anything went wrong with the Flinder-street. house, of which Sir Frederick is the hfi*d, he would h-ndly nominate — say an invoice clei k, a srtlmman, and one of his travel 'era, to investigate the affairs of his chief accountant — that is a committee of jnni"t\s and non-experts to sit in j'idg nent on a man in every respect their sup ri >r. That, however, is what he lias done in the present instance, iguoring altogether the Queen's Regulations made and provided for such cases. He may think he is adopting the r-ght course, and perhaps he is. Though it is only fair to assume that those who drew up the Regulations aforesaid, and the men who, guided by the results of lifelong experiences-, have from time to time amended them, know, at leist, a" much how such enquiries ought to be conducted as f War Minister whose experience is not yet six month's old. But this is the way of the world. Every man thinks nowadays that Elijah's mantle has fallen upon his owu shoulders.