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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 610, 21 May 1891, Page 2

The Northern Advertiser, which supports the interests of the people as against those of individuals, thus refers to the retrenchment of Judge Clendon Amongst other Government officials who are being ‘ retrenched ’ in furtherance of the policy of rigid economy which the Ballance Ministry appear to be bent upon, is our late and esteemed Resident Magistrate, Mr J. S. Clendon, who, not long since, was promoted to be a judge of the Native Lands-Court. His is one of the very hard cases which arise, apparently unavoidably, in performance of the invidious duty cast upon the Government. Had Mr Clendon been permitted to remain in the less conspicuous position of R.M., he would not now have been turned adrift summarily, but because that, after some thirty years of service, he was found to be eminently qualified for the much more responsible position to which he was recently promoted without any solicitation on his part, he must 1 go.’ We do not find fault with Ministers for their action in this matter, which may be, and probably is, a neces* sary part of their general scheme of r«. trenchment, but we do not envy them their task; it is only a slight degree removed from that of a public executioner who, in the discharge of his loathsome duty, has to hang a man whom he knows to be innocent."