THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1905.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 10 August 1905, Page 4

THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1905.

THE VOUCHER MYSTERY. « A new phase of the Seddon voucher incident occupied the House of Representatives a couple of hours yesterday afternoon, and. though technically no further advance was made and the essential facts remaiD wrapped in the same obscurity as before, quite enough came out in tho course of the discussion to satisfy the public that there is a good deal more to come, and that the sooner it comes the better for all concerned. A private member is, of course, practically powerless to raise by a direct motion such an issue as Mr. Fisher desirea to raise, but he adopted yesterday an ingenious procedure which, while formally unsuccessful, bad the effect of putting his challenge to the Premier in a very clear light before the House and the country, and of proving that he is quite prepared to face before a fitting tribunal the task of making good the bold words already uttered bj himself and his colleagues from the platform. When Mr. Fisher caught the Speaker's eye - soon after the House met yesterday afternoon, it was in order to ask the leave of the House to '.ay on tho table a letter which he had written to the Speaker and which he forthwith proceeded to read to the House. The letter was a remarkable one, and so was the procedure employed to give it prominence. The previous history of the voucher incident was recapitu. lated, the mistake with regard to the Sneddon voucher acknowledged, and the assertion repeated that in spite of the official denials which had been laid on the table of the House last week a payment of the kind originally alleged had been made to Captain Seddon. With the letter there had been delivered to the Speaker a sealed packet which was said to contain affidavits from three Civil Servants testifying to the fact that a payment had been made to Captain Seddon for reorganising the defence stores ; and Mr Fisher asked the Premier for. an indemnity to these officers to enable them to give evidence before a Parliamentary Committee which he suggested should be appointed to investigate the whole matter. In answer to the Premier, the Speaker said that he had received the letter and sealed affidavits from Mr. Fisher, and had been asked by him to read the letter to the House, but declined, to do so. The refusal was clearly a proper one, but gave small comfort to the Premier^ as the writer of the letter had already read it to the House before the fact of the Speaker's refusal was elicited. The Premier then proceeded to reply to Mr. Fisher, and has seldom been heard to worse advantage. He has been known on occasion to disregard an inconvenient precedent which 'appeared to block his way, * but nobody is a greater stickler for precedent when it can be made to block anybody else's way, and he successfully defied any member to discover any precedent for the course proposed. But it would be equally difficult to discover precedent* for the action of the Premier in laying on the table from time to time all manner of unofficial and partisan documents which may be likely to help the particular case ho way have in hand for the moment. It was not, however, the technical question of laying the letter on the table, but the broader one of the enquiry mentioned in the letter, which chiefly occupied the minds and tongueb of members yesterday , afternoon. Is the case ori"e for independent enquiry, or is it not? On this point we regard the Premier's attitude as particularly unfortunate. From his standpoint, the question should euroly have not been so much "What has this young man the right to demand?" as "How much is it either magnanimous or prudent for me to refuse?" Wo may believe the case to be without . precedent, or anything like a precedent, at any rate in the land of the Mother of Parliaments, but an unprecedented solution may often be the only way out of an unprecedented difficulty. And it was open to the Premier to accede to tho request for an enquiry without establishing a precedent that would injure anybody, for a concession granted by the free consent of the person of whom it is asked cannot establish a. precedent for grant of tho same concession in any future case whore that consent as not forthcoming. Tho Premier could have said, "I deny your right to an enquiry, but I»have nothing to fear and nothing to keep back, and I therefore couit it," without prejudicing the position of a future Premier or member who, having something to fear, desired to take every technical protection that was open to him. Instead of taking this course, Mr. Seddon has preferred to resort to a good deal of argument, somo of it absolutely sound, some of it decidedly flimsy', against Mr. Fisher's right to the enquiry for which -he asks. "The Speaker was to hold n sealed packet," ho said, "which wns said to hold affidavits from Civil Sorvauts. They knew not what wns in it, and if such a course was adopted, who was safe?" This is absurd. Except for perjury, to which it is not to bo supposed that Civil Servants will bo more prone than oflior men, nobody will bo exposed by this procedure to «tny danger which his own acts do not fully ontitlo him to incur; and perjury will hare no greater facilities under this procedure than under any other. A vague charge and a fishing enquiry are clearly things to which the House should not lend any countonanco, but that is another matter. It seems to us that in the present case the charge as repeated in the House yesterday is quite specific enough to give the accused perfect knowledge of what has to bo met, and to give any tribunal that might be set up a perfectly definite subject for enquiry. Into the questions of procedure and constitutional precedent raised by the Premier's opposition to the proposal yesterday we do not propose to enter; tho Opposition nud the New Liberals themselves were both divided as to whether against his will the letter should be put on record and an enquiry instituted. But da the pretence of

the grave issue raised the country will have no relish for the subtleties of constitutional pedantry, nor for vain speculations as to the relative value of the high official certificates already produced to show that all is dn order, and the alleged affidavits of unknown ana inferior officers which, are respectably vouched to prove the contrary. What the country wants is to brush all mystery and technicality aside and to get straight at the facts, and Mr. Duthie in his downright way expressed the average man's opinion on the point when lie said that if he were a Minister similarly placed he would not rest for five minutes with the uncertainty hanging over him. What is in that sealed envelope? It may be waste paper, or it may be affidavits, and the affidavits may be true or false, convincing or worthless, weighty or weak. What is the use of guessing? The country wants the seal removed from the envelope and the contents disclosed, and if the Premier will but say the word, it can be done to-morrow.