THE TIMARU HERALD AND THE GOVERNMENT CHEQUES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XIV, Issue 1136, 24 May 1879, Page 7

THE TIMARU HERALD AND THE GOVERNMENT CHEQUES.

(From the Wellington Post), The thoroughly unscrupulous character of the Timaru Herald is well known. It is, in the pursuit of slander and detraction, the Lady Gay Spanker of journalism—“ nothing stops it; nothing !” Hitherto it has confined it unamiable propensities to malicious attacks on individuals, and highly imaginative detraction of all other places than Timaru. Now, however, it has attempted a bolder flight, and has aimed a slanderous and wilfully malicious blow at the credit of the colony,- by representing the Bank of New Zealand as dishonoring Government cheques from want of funds. The Herald must have known the absurd falsity of this charge, or it could, i at least, without the slightest difficulty, have ascertained the real facts. These are as follows :—Rrior to any cheques being issued by the Treasury a schedule of advice is sent to the Bank of New Zealand here to be forwarded to the branch of the Bank on which the cheques are drawn, by the same mail that the cheques goby. Occasionally it has happened that this schedule has not been forwarded by the same mail, although time for its being so sent is always allowed before the cheques are posted. On the 15th of last month a schedule of cheques on Timaru was sent to the Bank, and the cheques were posted an hour and a quarter afterwards.

Next day, in the afternoon, another similar schedule, the amounts in both cases being small, was sent to the Bank, and the following morning the cheques were posted. The cheques reached Timavu on the Saturday, but the schedules of advice did not. The Bank, on presentation of the chocks, said they must be held over until the advics was received. The same thing occurs constantly with post office orders. If an order is taken out a few minutes before a mail closes, the letter of advice does not go on till next mail. No holder of an order, payment of which is thus delayed, goes about crying that the order has been dishonoured, and that the colony is insolvent ; and yet there would be the same Justification for such assertion as in the facts on which the Timaru Herald has based its article. On the Saturday the Timaru Bank telegraphed to know about these cheques, and on Monday telegraph instructions to pay were forwarded, but by that time the missing schedules of advice had arrived. This is the whole story. As a matter of fact the credit balance of the Government at the Bank at the time was close to a quarter of a million, and the cheques are for, very trifling sums indeed.