A NICE PARLIAMENTARY OFFICIAL.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume VI, Issue 1009, 17 July 1883, Page 2

A NICE PARLIAMENTARY OFFICIAL.

It will bo remembered that Mr. Reimenschneider resigned his appoint? ment of interpreter in the Legislative Council, and Mr Hadfield succeeded him. Papers on the subject were ordered in the Legislative Council and were produced on Friday. Some extraordinary disclosures are made. The Hon. Mr Tako Ngatata made a direct charge of having been paid short of his proper honorarium for the last three years, to which Mr Riemenschneider stated that he was prepared to show that he paid Wi Tako, or Maoris on his behalf, the full amount due. The signatures in the Treasury, the Speaker, in his report to the Premier, states bear,„tjie Hon. Wi Tako’s signature for full amount. In 1880 the latter says the gave him no money till the recess, when he brought him L9O in notes, not cheques. In the year 1882, in June, he borrowed LlO from the interpreter, and the latter gave him a cheque, which was drawn by himself, and at the end of the session Wi Tako Ngatata received from the interpreter the sum of L 95. Previously, when Mr Richardson was alive, he had been accustomed to ; get his : money in cheques. The Hon. J. Martin told him he was not receiving the right, amount. The reply *o the charge was that sums of money had been advanced to certain natives on the verbal authority of Wi Tako at various times, during each session of the Assembly. Admitting he had done wrong, however, Mr Riemenschneider forwarded the deficient amount, L 345, to Wi Tako Ngatata, and obtained a receipt for the same, though by a series of * receipts from natives he accounts for the money he had forwarded, and is, of course, paying a second time. These receipts now bear pencil marks from Wi Tako’s son that the natives aro unknown to him. There are 27 of these receipts. On 12th October, 1882, the Speaker says the dealing with the Hon. Wi Tako’s money would not bear the light, but as ho had made restitution no further action would be taken. At the same time had the money been public money, a far more searching investigation would have been entered into, and any such future transaction would lead to instant dismissal. , Native members, it is added, can now receive an advance on aecount of their honorarium without passing through the interperter’a hands, and paid by cheque. On tho 22nd May, 1883, a writ was served upon Riemenschneider at the instance of the Hon. Mokena Kohere, and the Speaker thereupon suspended him.