The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Saturday, December 15, 1888. THE SHANNON JOB.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 235, 15 December 1888, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Saturday, December 15, 1888. THE SHANNON JOB.

Be just and fear not;; Let all the ends thou aim’at at be thy country's, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

The appointment of Mr Shannon, as a soft goods “expert" in the Customs Department, is one of the most scandalous actions that have in late years debased the colony’s political history. The appointment itself is indefensible and the manner of making it is a very bad instance of that vile system of dispensing patronage at the public expense. Eight hundred pounds a year and one hundred guineas as a retaining fee is a magnificent sum to pay a Government detective to watch public servants, whose greatest recommendation tor thsir position should be

honesty, and we think Mr Shannon can well afford to be thick-skinned and grow fat as well on the munificent endowment made on his behalf. But the most scandalous part of the whole thing is that Mr Shannon has publicly stated that he has already saved the public exchequer more than his salary by the detection of frauds on the Customs Department. Has it come to this, that State servants can make such a gross imputation of fraud against the traders of the colony, without being compelled to substantiate it ? Or if it is true that such wholesale frauds are being carried on, are the defrauders to be allowed to escape prosecution ? If there is any reliance to be placed on the word of this eight hundred pounds a year pitchfork shot —and at his price there surely ought to be —there is a clear case of fraudulency against some of the colonial importers, yet there is to be no prosecution, and honest men have to submit'to this slur cast upon the whole trade by one who has met with so much favor at court that he can draw a very fat wage and at his pleasure snub those who have to pay it. If these charges of fraudulency are made merely as a justification for Mr Shannon’s appointment, then it is the most shameful and disgraceful job that has been perpetrated in the colony. The imputation does not end with the importers: if we are to believe Mr Shannon the Customs officials as a body are either a pack of scoundrels or fools—though we ourselves should prefer to hold a different opinion of the cheaper article, which cannot, however, be expected to be as clever as the eight hundred pounds a year man. There is no doubt some reason for having a capable man at the head of affairs in the Customs Department, but a far better man could have been obtained for less than half the salary.