THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 17 August 1910, Page 7

THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

QUESTION OF CHURCH INFLUENCE. Discussing the appointment of Mr. Dinnie, ex-Commissioner of Police, to the Chairmanship of .a. Native Land Board, Mr. T. E. Taylor. M.P. for Christchurch North, remarked in t'he House of R-epresentativcs that what was done in that matter had been done openly. It could, not be said that there was anything in the nature of "Tammanyism" in connection with the appointment. Hiis own opinion was that it was a very feeble appointment. He would like to remind the House that a very powerful deputation waited on the Government before Mr. Dinnie was dealt with as the result of the Commission, aiici urged that he should be .retained, even when the commissioner (Mr Bishop) had declared 'that Mr. Dinnie's administration had been very faulty, and when he challenged Mr. Dinnie's capacity as an administrator. The deputation consisted of certain prominent men in connect ion with the Presbyterian Church, and they pressed the Government not to dismiss Mr. Dinnie. Personally, he had always welcomed the advent cf the Christian Church into politics, so long as they came for ethical purposes, but no section of the Church had any right to go to the Ministry of the day and beg that a public servant should be retained in the public service who had been guilty of incapacity. If it had happened that the deputation had gone from the Roman Catholic Church there would have been such a howl from the Orangemen that it would have been heard from end to end of the Dominion. There could be no doubt a.lso that the Prime Minister would have been charged with having bee-n influenced by the people of his own church. But it so happened that it was the dissenting church that had come into politics in this way —'they were trying to use their influence in a wav that they had no right to.