IT CANNOT BE TRUE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 20 January 1872, Page 8

IT CANNOT BE TRUE.

A story has appeared in the Marlborough papers, and is the subject of common conversation in Blenheim and Picton, which, unfriendly as we are to the present Government, we cannot believe to be true. The story runs, that during Mr. Moorhouse's recent visit to Blenheim, to arrange for the introduction of the Land Transfer Act into Marlborough, he informed Dr. Muller, the respected Eesidenfc Magistrate, that to enable the Government to carry out their plans of economy, the office of Eesident Magistrate at Blenheim and Picton must be amalgamated with that of Commissioner of Crown Lands, and that these two offices would for the future be held by Mr. Eyes, who has jusfc been appointed to the latter office. It is reported also, that Dr. Mailer has since received au intimation from the Colonial Secretary's office, that his services are to be dispensed with after the 31st instant, when he will have six months' leave of absence given him, during which he will be permitted to draw his present salary. The gentleman who is said to be thus summarily dismissed from the Civil Service, has held the appointment of Eesident Magistrate at Blenheim for nearly seventeen years, as also, from time to time, a number of other offices of trust and responsibility, such as Collector of Customs, Postmaster, Sheriff, Eeturning Officer, and others we cannot enumerate ; some of which he has continued to hold to the present time, while others, such, as the Collector of Customs and Postmaster, were withdrawn from him when it was considered the business of the place required they should be held separately. Whether as Eesident Magistrate, or as the holder of any of his other multifarious offices, Dr. Muller has always been highly respected by the community among whom he resided. His regularity of habits, his close attention to business, and his spotless character, singularly qualified him to represent the Government in a community like that of Marlborough ; and while a more faithful and zealous public servant could not be found in the colony, the example of his conduct could not fail to have a beneficial effect on the incongruous elements which composed the infant and progressive settlement over which he presided. Now to suppose that seventeen years of service such as we have described is to be rewarded by a curt dismissal, and the important judicial office of Eesident Magistrate taken from so experienced an officer and bestowed upon a man whose only special qualification for performing its duties is having supported Ministers by his votes in the Assembly, is altogether too monstrous to be believed. Opposed as we are to thePox-Vogel Government, we think better of them individually as men, and collectively as a Government, than to believe they \rould be guilty of such injustice to a tried and well-approved servant, or deal such a blow to the interests of the public. Mr. Gisborne, so many years the head of the Civil Service of the colony, and knowing the importance of giving stability to the service by acting justly towards its members, would never sanction an act which must unsettle the whole body by showing that no length of service, no integrity of conduct, no devotion to duty, could secure a public servant in his office when it was needed as a means of political corruption. Mr. Pox, whose high principles of morality, and interest in the general well-being of society,

has led him to devote all the time he can snatch from official duties to the promotion of the great cause of temperance, adding example to precept, could not be so insensible to the value of unblemished character in the seat of justice, as to rashly dispense with it. Mr. Vogel, wild and speculative though he be, is a man of too nice a sense of justice to thus wantonly outrage it. The whole story must be an invention of an enemy of the Government, and nothing better than a calumnious slander. The pretext of economy, by amalgamating the offices of Eesident Magistrate and Commissioner of Crown Lands, ingeniously put forward by the propagators of this story, is too transparent to need remark. If it was the intention of Government that such amalgamation should be made, the duties of the Land Commissioner would of course have been added to those of the Eesident Magistrate, an esteemed and able public servant, and not the Eesident Magistracy given to the Land Commissioner, only two months in office. Besides, there are special reasons which we do not wish to enter upon, why the office of Eesident Magistrate at Blen.heim could not be conferred upon Mr. Eyes. The rumour of this appointment, has however, greatly distressed the respectable portion of the community, but their fears must surely be groundless. "Whatever may be said to the contrary, nothing but the appointment appearing in the Gazette shall convince us that Ministers would be guilty of the conduct attributed to them.