A QUESTION OF PROPRIETY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9941, 21 January 1898, Page 5

A QUESTION OF PROPRIETY.

MINISTERS AND ADVISORY BOARDS.

(From the Australian Mining Standard, January 6th.) The propriety of Cabinet Ministers connecting themselves as promoters, directors, or in other prominent positions with mining companies, has been frequently challenged. Recently it was most hotly and acrimoniously debated in New Zealand, on Mr Rolleston's motion condemning the practice, this being plainly directed against the Premier, Mr Seddon, aud his colleague, Mr John M'Kenzie, Minister of Lands. The former came within ita purview as adviser to the Anglo-Continental Mining Syndicate, and the latter as a member of the Advisory Board of the Colonial Consignment and Distributing Company. In Tasmania the same general matter came under review through the discussion on Mr Henry's protest against Mr Urquhart, the new Attorney-General, taking charge of a syndicate bill The objeotion to Mr M'Kenzie, the New Zealand Minister for Lands, holding his seat on the Board of the Colonial Consignment and Distributing Company, is surely justified to the full by the discredit which the connection of the late Treasurer, Mr J. G. Ward, with an insolvent company and suspicious bank financing, has brought upon the Ministry and the country. It cannot be doubted that Victorian credit doubly suffered in the collapse which followed the boom because of the connection of Premiers and Cabinet Ministers with bogus banks and wild cat land companies. The retirement of Mr Mundella from the presidency of the Board of Trade in 1894 indicated the British view of these connections, and the matter again came into prominence when Sir Joseph Renals, the Lord Mayor of London, found that his association with the Barnato Bank business had mode his office too .hot to hold him. The solid ground of objection to the connection is that Ministers of the Crown must, by their office, be trustees for the whole community, and that therefore they cannot consistently hold a position which also makes them the agents for a company in treaty with themselves, as Ministers, for concessions, at the cost of the whole community. But it the prominent association of a Cabinet Minister with any form of proprietary enterprise bringing him into touch with the Government of the day is to be deprecated, it is clear that his connection with a mining company is the more to be deprecated because of the more direct dependence of the mining enterprise upon Ministerial decision. In carrying out other industrial ventures the company need not be dependent on ministerial word for a decision that means success or failure. The ordinary trading concern virtually stands clear of ministerial thunder, but the mining venture can be made or marred by the stroke of a ministerial pen. Is it reasonable to suppose that a direct personal interest would have no effect in deciding upon which side this decision shall be given, or is it to be assumed that Australasian ministers are absolutely impervious to the influences which so powerfully sway unofficial human nature ? No one with an average amount of common sense needs to be told that you do not change the character of men by making them ministers of the Crown ; but while holding this position the heavier is the responsibility devolving upon them to avoid even the appearance of evil. Therefore, seeing the extent to which such connection may be misconstrued, it is plainly most undesirable that any cabinet minister should hold office as the promoter, director, or other prominent official of any mining company operating within the limits of his own colony.