WELLINGTON NOTES.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9323, 25 January 1896, Page 8

WELLINGTON NOTES.

THE PRIVATE SECRETARY IN COURT. [By Wkllingtonl—t.] On a certain day last week the precincts of the Stipendiary Magistrate's Court had quite a Ministerial look about it. Instead of the usual frowsy habitues who haunt the locality and taint the air with strange odours as if they had slept in a ditch and breakfasted on gin and onions, there was an air of respectability, nob to say swelldom, about the place from lunch time to 5.30 p.m. No less a personage than the Premier himself waa cooling his heels for three hours or more, with his expansive chest thrown more forward than is usual even with him, and his head thrown back as if the bump of self-esteem were tbe weightiest organ in the conformation of his massive brain. With him was the Hon. J. Carrod, Dr. Fitchett, and tnree of the four private Secretaries who are necessary to convey the emanations of the aforesaid brain to indelible ink and paper—Messrs Hamer, Gray and Andrews ; the other one, Mr Churches, being absent, his particular duties being to keep the Premier's library in order and to clip out favourable notices from Ministerial journals. The reason of this gathering was soon apparent. Mr R. Aherne, a journalist well known iv Christchurch, formerly on the Lyttelton Times statf, was plaintiff in an action to recover £25 for services rendered, the Hon. J. Carroll being defendant. It transpired in evidence that the Premier induced Aherne to leave the Evening Press, then a prohibition paper in a moribund condition, and found occupation for him as a private Secretary attached to no particular Minister, his duties including the revision of the Royal Commissioners' report on the Fox letter episode and other similar work. But as work ran short with such a plethora of private secretaries the Premier's chief of the Btaff, Hamer, was instructed to instal Aherne as Private Secretary to Mr Carroll, and this change was effected on August 12th, 1894, snd during the session of that year he kept Tini Kara posted up in matters relating to his department. The history of the Premier's trip with hia retinue through the Uriwera country had to be edited, for the various historians who were engaged had taken their notes in a very promiscuous fashion, and their manuscript was not only shovelled in anyhow, bub displayed a really remarkable contempt for grammar. When tlm great work emerged from the press copies were circulated among friends and constituents who were deemed worthy of such a token of the Premier's esteem. After this a coolness set in, and Aherne, although promised full work throughout the recess, appears to have fallen out of favour—why does not appear —and in January tho Premier refused to pass a voucher for his salary. Mr Carroll returned to Wellington, and Aherne was reinstated as his Private Secretary, and the Premier made him an offer of 10s per day. At this Aherne waxed warm, insubordinate, and even mutinous, and the Premier having departed to Kumara on March 2nd, Aherne wired to him that he objected to be classed with loafers about Government Buildings, who were only capable of licking stamps and addressing envelopes. He further suggested to Mr Seddon that it did not matter to him whether his salary came out of the vote for dredging Nelson harbour or for constructing the Howick wharf, or any other perfunctory work. Ib would be quite as regular if paid out of these votes, as many others had been during the previous session. These pleasant missives, and others of a similar nature, were produced by Mr Gully, counsel for the defendant Carroll, to prove that tho Crown, and not the defendant, was the principal party to the action, and he claimed a nonsuit. Aherne deposed to having done all the Secretarial work required for Mr Carroll prior to his post-ses&ional speech to his constituents, and of having sown the Treasurer's speech and other documents broadcast throughout tbe Waipa electorate, besides doing other work for hia chief, Buch as is performed by the Private Secretaries of other Ministers. The Magistrate granted a non-suit without costs, and it is understood that the case will be brought on again with the Crown as defendant.