REALLY REMARKABLE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 716, 20 November 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

REALLY REMARKABLE.

New Zealand Times, November 16. A yery curious announcement is made through the medium by which Ministerial intimations at present usually obtain publicity. Presumably, therefore, it may be taken as given—- “ Ministerial authority.” This peculiar announcement is in the following words: — “ Mr W. P. Reeves, solicitor, son of Hon. W. Reeves, proprietor of the Lyttelton Times, has recently been comfortably provided with £3OO a-year at the public expense. . What he is to do in return has not, we believe, been settled. The Ministerial instruction to the head of the Department, to which MrW. P. Reeves is attached, was, it is said, to the effect that ‘ something was to be. found for him to do at £3OO a-year.’ The Department was not, we believe, at the time in want of any extra assistance.”

Now. rumors to this efleefc have been in circulation for several days past, but we felt great difficulty in attaching credence to so grave a charge of gross jobbery. We have had occasion often enough to differ from

the present Government on of public policy, and we have man] times pointed out what we deeme; serious errors of judgment on-thei part. .But although we disagree' with them as to the expediency c various measures or modes of prc cedure, we were always willing to giv them full credit for au earnest, j sometimes mistaken, intention to d their best for the interests of theipublic It was quite impossible, however, t discern any such motive underlyin. this last proceeding, which curren rumour attributed -to Ministers, am we indulged a hope that the rep or might turn out to be a mere piece o gossip, possibly circulated for politick purposes. We can no longer lay thif flattering unction to our soul. There is the plain unmistakeable statement Ministers cannot say “ an enemy hati done this.” It is the hand of a frient that has published their last interest ing appointment. What it wiU, an< must, be generally thought of mai fairly be gathered from the fact tha even their most devoted friends ar< compelled to admit that it is a grosf “job,” “ scandalous,” “ discreditable,’ and “ most objectionable •” opinions in which we heartily concur. Assum ing the facts to be as alleged, an out rageous and inexcusable job has beei perpetrated with a degree of cynica coolness and contempt for public opinion that is without any paralle in our experience. Commonly, whefi any very gross job is to be perpetrated! there is at least some attempt to gej up a decent case in support of the proceeding, and to lead the public mind up to the idea that a crying want exists which can only be supplied in the way proposed by the Govern! ment. In this instance the seems to have been much more simple] The relative of an influential supj porter “ wants a billet.” “ All right 1 ” say Ministers, “ put hinj down for £3OO a year, and find him something to do (or to appear to doj for it if you can; if you can’t, it don’t matter so long as you pay him the salary regularly.” That is how the case is asserted to stand. If this is true, it is a very bad case. Three] hundred pounds is to be deliberately taken out of the public purse every year and hauded over to a certairj gentleman for no other reason than that a relative of his has been ana still is a useful supporter of the Government. Merely to record such a proceeding is to pronounce its unj qualified condemnation. But there another and, if possible, a worse aspecj in which this matter must inevitably appear. A startlingly vivid light iij now thrown upon the recent in the Civil Service. It was noisily declared that they were the direct and unavoidable and deplorably of Captain. Bussell’s motion. Now! however, we are forced to the conclusion that the object 6f these dismissal was to make room for the appoint! ment of Ministerial supporters oi their relatives. It is a disagreeable conclusion, but how can we escape it j 'lf it were necessary to dispense wit! so many officers because the reductiotj of the appropriations to L2,100,00C left no work for them to do, theij clearly it cannot have been necessari to appoint new officers simultaneously! If new officers were needed, festly the old ones could not be spared. The case is too obvious foj argument. If this appointment halj really been made, there • can be nt doubt at all that the recent dismissals were to make way for it, and probably others of a like character. We have not a word to say in disparagement 0} the character or capacity of the gentleman who is stated to have been so improperly thrust into the Civil Service. We have every reason to believe he might prove an excellent officer. this is nothing to' the point. Were he ever so desirable, his appointment thus made would none the less be a gross and scandalous job. We sincerely trust that Ministers will be able even yet to show that there has been some strange misconception, and tci disclaim an action which, if in reality committed, would deservedly bring them into general contempt and incur the severest public reprobation.

New Zealand Times, November 17. The later developments of the Reeves' appointment affair are really too funny.

The paper which first announced the apjoihtment now says it was in error in iorne dozen particulars, or thereabout ;" nfer alia', that it is not “Mr W< P. beeves,” but “Mr W.D. Peeves” who S appointed ; that he is not the “son,” Jut the “ nephew or near relation ” of tfr W. Reeves, M.L.C.; that he is not a ‘ lawyer,” but an “ agricultural chemist;” hat he possesses “agricultural expedience ” and not journalistic ; that he las not been appointed to a L3OO sineture, but has been secured as an expert ‘ to organise the new agricultural branch >f the Crown Lands Department,” and hat he has already furnished “ a valuable report on the agricultural )roducts shown in the Exhibition.” Lfter this singular instance of right-ibout-facing, one will feel considerable lesitation in accepting future announcenents made through the same channel, isfcensibly, “on Ministerial authority,” lud it is plain that we were warranted n Expressing doubt as to the accuracy jf the statements published. But this is lot all. The Ministerial paper persists in iolding that even 'in spite of this explanation the appointment “ has a very lasty look about it.” On the other hand, ■he Opposition paper warmly takes up ;he defence of Ministers against the unfounded. imputations cast upon them by ;he Ministerial journal, and roundly declares that the latter has only discovered i “ mare’s nest. ” All this is highly entertaining, and we shall watch with the reenest zest for some further interesting developments in this diverting game of ;ross purposes.