THE MIRAMAR SCANDAL.

Evening Post, Volume LXIV, Issue 119, 15 November 1902, Page 4

THE MIRAMAR SCANDAL.

Again the Government is to be congratulated on the able manner in which Dr. Findlay handled his brief for the defence, and again we have to point out that in regard to the Miramar scandal he has discovered an excuse for the Premier's conduct which had been hidden, unknown even to the Premier himself, for more than two years. That excuse is that the city had power to acquire the Miramar estate under the Municipal Corporations Act 1900, and that Mr. Hutcheson's Bill was therefore superfluous. The discovery is doubtless very interesting, and fully justifies the action of the Government in retaining Dr. Findlay for the defence, but as a matter of fact neither that nor any other part of his arguments on this particular subject help the Premier in the slightest degree. Whatever may be said by the Premier or his counsel certain facts stand out with startling prominence, viz., that Mr. J. Hutcheson, who had incurred the displeasure of Mr. Seddon, was in charge of a Local Bill concerning the City of Wellington, which city has consistently refused for years past to bow down and worship the powers that be, and long before the Bill was killed by the unconstitutional means which v were employed, everybody concerned knew that the Premier had determined that it should die. And, the Premier having so willed, it did die, it was murdered in fact, and 'by its dearth the ratepayers of Wellington were deprived of the opportunity to which tfiey are entitled of expressing i their -will at the poll as to ■whether Miramar "should be acquired or not. Neither the Premier nor Dr. Findlay nor any one else has any right to insinuate that the City Council would not have managed the estate successfully if it had been acquired ; no one can say what would hare happened in that case, but again we reiterate that all the City Counoil asked was that it should be given the power to submit the question to the ratepayers, and the Premier deliberately and wilfully refused to give the ratepayers that opportunity. As to the way in which he carried hia design into effect, Dr. Findlay sought to prove last night that the Premier had no option but to sacrifice this Bill in the interests of a large number of others which came after it. Against that it should be remembered that the accumulation of local Bills at the end of the session would never have taken ph\ce if the Standing-orders had been observed, and that after that congestion had taken place, his action in removing any Bill from the top of the Order-paper to the bottom was absoluely unprecedented, and we feel sure would never have been even contemplated if the Bill had been in charge of a Government supporter and had emanated from a city of different political views. Dr. Findlay objects to an attempt being made to wreck the Government on a 'parochial question, but he forgets that the Premier took advantage of that parochial question coming before Parliament to use all his political influence and skill aud trickery to get back *at Wellington for : its opposition to him and his administration. Facts are hard things, aaid sometimes prove too much even for the counsel for the defence.