THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1882. MR. SHEEHAN AGAIN.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume III, Issue 376, 21 December 1882, Page 2

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1882. MR. SHEEHAN AGAIN.

We wonder if Mr. Sheehan will ever repair the reputation that was so shattered by his two years' tenure of office. It was thought that the stories of that two years' orgy were fading out of recollection, but unpleasant memories linger long, and moreover are conjured up again without much effort, and therefore, owing to a recent incident, Mr. Sheehan's administration of native affairs is once more before the public mind. The incident was this, that addressing some church meeting in Great Britain recently Mr. Arthur Mills, an English M.P., spoke on the subject of missions, and in a very despairing tone, for he said that he had been to New Zealand and he had seen a Minister of the Crown making a native woman drunk. The statement naturally caused a great sensation, and Mr. Gisborne, who happened to be in England, wrote pointing out that, even if the statement were true, it was unjust to draw the inference that colonial Ministers generally were given to such conduct. When the correspondence reached New Zealand, Mr. Sheehan put the cap on, and wrote to the Auckland Herald denying the truth of the statement. We have not by us a copy of the letter, but we think he characterised Mr. Mills' statement as " a scandalous lie," or used some such strong language. Then he went on to charge Mr. Mills with begging a free seat in his (Mr. Sheehan's) trap, drinking his wine, and eating his victuals on the cheap. The English M.P. was charged with a breach of the laws of hospitality, and the public was asked to believe that he was a kind of loafer who had been hanging round Johnny for free drinks and cheap rides, was in no respect a gentleman, and in short a person not to be trusted. The letter was an odd admixture of garbled quotations from scripture, vulgar colonial slang, and stupid attempts to be witty. However, he was very emphatic and solemn on one point : Mr. Arthur Mills was wrong in all his facts. For the credit of the first colonial-born Minister of New Zealand, and for the credit of New Zealand itself, colonists were glad, and it seemed as if there was nothing to be done except for Mr. Mills to be relegated to that obscurity which is the doom of publicly-con-victed liars. Our telegrams of yesterday, however, threw a new and still more unpleasant light on the matter. " The Bishop of Waiapu informs the Herald, with reference to Mr. Sheehan's letter, which was a few days ago telegraphed from Auckland, that his lordship accompanied Mr. Mills on the only occasion of his visiting Rotomahana, and that Mr. Sheehan must be mistaken in his recollection of what then occurred." So it would seem that Mr. Sheehan has been fibbing. It is a pity, though, that the bishop was not a little more explicit, and did not say whether Mr. Sheehan was " mistaken in his recollection " as to what he himself did or — whether Mr. Mills original charge was correct or incorrect ; or whether it was Mr. Sheehan's counter charges and taunts that were incorrect. The Bishop goes far enough though to throw doubt on the truth of Mr. Sheehan's letter, and to again

cause New Zealand to blush for shame at the doings of the Great Liberal Ministry of 1877-79.