The Hastings Standard Published Daily. TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1896. WHAT DID THEY WANT?

Hastings Standard, Issue 49, 23 June 1896, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1896. WHAT DID THEY WANT?

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

Ox debating the Address-in-Reply the Minister of Lands accused the Conservative party of attempting to throw odium upon the Government, in every possible way in connection with the banking legislation, and now they were attempting to block inquiry, and, he asked, " What did they want ? " Mr Duthie answered promptly, " A Royal Commissian." The Minister : " Name your Commission." Mr Duthie: " Judges of the Supreme Court." The Minister : " Tory Judges to sit upon Liberal Ministers." In this dialogue we get an insight into the scope of the Select Committee to be appointed. It is simple balderdash to suppose that tha inquiry sought to be made by the Government will be anything more than a farce. With five Ministerial members against three Opposition on a select committee we may rest assured that a report on strict party lines will be the result.

That an inquiry into the whole bank- 1 ing legislation is desirable, and that it is demanded by the country is clear, but what the country requires is not what the Ministers propose to give it. A full and fair inquiry by a competent tribunal is the only way out of the difficulty. A competent tribunal must consist of men with a knowledge of banking, and the members of the proposed Select Committee are in no way competent. The Supreme Court Judges, too, are lacking in the qualifications, as the kind of inquiry needed will involve a close examination into books and papers and a search into accounts of an intricate character. The inquiry must be as searching and as exhaustive as that recently made into the affairs of the Mercantile Bank of Victoria. But we need not go into this matter further, for in our issue of Friday last we indicated the kind of tribunal we should like to see set up to inquire into this matter. Mr McKenzie's retort to Mr Duthie's interjection completely gives away the intentions of the Government. " Tory Judges to sit on Liberal Ministers !" Are the Ministers impugned by the banking legislation '? Undoubtedly they arc, and yet on the proposed Select Committee two Ministers and three of their followers are to be members. In plain words, Ministers are to sit in judgment upon themselves, and under such circumstances a favorable verdict is a foregone conclusion. Ministers are accused of being parties to the bamking legislation of the past two years under circumstances that in some quarters are regarded as amounting to political corruption. Ministers, of course, deny the impeachment, and express themselves willing to submit the matter to examination ; that being so, is it not patent to every one that the inquiry, to be fair and complete, and above suspicion, should be undertaken by an impartial tribunal'? We learn that the members who usually follow the Ciovermiiont on important questions have expressed dissatisfaction with the mode of conducting the banking inquiry proposed by Ministers, and there is every reason to believe that a Royal Commission will be set up. There is another point in Mr McKenzie's retort which deserves to be noted. From the Minister's remark it would appear that the Judges of our Supreme Court are partial in their judgments; that their views are colored by political partisanship. "Tory Judges to sit on Liberal Ministers."' It is a gratuitous reflection s»n the Bench of Judges, and is unwarranted. If we take the very latest Supreme Court decision, that delivered by Mr Justice Williams in the Ward affair, we find it characterised by extreme fairness and lucidity, so much so, that Mr Ward himself, when swayed by a remorseless passion, admitted it, in the heat of his fury, to be " the decision of a just Judge." Mr McKenzie in debate is proverbial for his acrobatic feats, for he never opens his mouth without putting his foot into it. In the passage-at-arms with Mr Duthie he has given away the Ministerial position most completely.