Evening Post. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1890. MINISTERS ON TRIAL.

Evening Post, Volume XL, Issue 10, 11 July 1890, Page 2

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1890. MINISTERS ON TRIAL.

+ Mb. HuTcmsoN'sacouaations against Ministers in regard to thoir relations with the Bank of New Zealand have hit home, and evidently touched those gentlemen to the quick. They are compollcd to take notice of the charges, but they evidently shrink from an impartial inquiry. They will trust nothing to chance, and untess they can, by paoking the jury, make suro in advance of a favourable verdict, thoy will not plead. We have reraly known an instance of greater Parliamentary audacity than Mr, Mitchelson's attempt yesterday to appoint his own selected Committee without notico. That Committee is on its very face an unfair one. The very first name on it is sufficient to condemn its constitution. Sir John Hall is no fit judge or juror in a oaae of this kind. As a former Premier and Treasurer, his relations with the Bank of New Zealand have been of far too intimate and confidential a character to enable him now to exorcise an impartial judgment on such a oaso, while his admitted partizanship of the Ministry which is to be plaoed upon its trial is a further disqualification. So with several of the other members nominated. Their own public and private relations with Ministers and with the Bank of Now Zealand render them utterly unfit to sit as judges in such an enquiry. The report of Mr» Mitchblson'b Committee would be a foregone conolußion. It would whitewash the accused, and if, unfortunately, tho o vidouoe was adverse to BUch a conclusion, why, tho majority would simply shrug their shoulders and say, "so much the worao for the evidenOo." In committee to enquire into suck a case as the present, where tho gravest issues affecting the charaoteb of several of our leading publio ineii have to be decided, the greatest care should be exercised in selecting the members aDpointed. NO strong partizaa ou either sido should sit upon it. The tribunal should be above suspicion of partiality. The relations of its members in a party sense, and to tl o Bank of Now Zoaland, Bhoald bo enquired into and weighed as strictly and clo3ely as is tho impartiality of an Amerioan juryman in important criminal trials. It the rules of the Houso permit, we think the members of the Committee Bhould enter upon their duty nnder the solemn obligation of an oath to porform that duty well, faithfully, and impartially. They should bo sworn at tho bar of the House, as oertain othor committees used to bo. The repttta* tion of men who have filled or aro now filling tho highest political offices in the colony is involved in the enquiry, and the public voice will demand that the investigation shall be full and complete, let the individual oonsequences be what thoy may. Thero mnsfc bo no slurring over an enquiry of this kind by a pnrely party Committee, on whioh it is only necessary to aonnt noses in Older to anticipate the verdict. If the Government are able to carry the appointment of such a Committee, the enquiry will be a farce, bnt the public will not be satisfied to let the matter' rest, and the whole thing will certainly bo re-opened in the new Parliament, where it is devoutly to bo hopod the parties whose honour is impugned will exeroise less political power than in the present House, and be unable to command a subservient majority determined at all hazards to avert exposure. We do not expcob that under present ciroumstances, and in the present House, a really impartial unbiased Committee, anxious only to arrive at tho truth and see justice done, is at all likely to be appointed; but wo trust Mr. Hutchison and the-Opposition will strenuously resist the appointment of a paoked Ministerial Committeo, determined beforehand to make only a sham enquiry, and prepared to Jay on the whitowash so thickly as to thoroughly obliterate any dark stains which might possibly exist below.