FAIR-PLAY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 915, 13 September 1889, Page 29

FAIR-PLAY.

In one respect Parliamentary caucus meetings are solemn farces. • Ostensibly they are

conducted on lines of strictest secrecy. No one is to divulge anything, yet it will go hard with the sharp denizens of the reporters’ gallery if the substance of all such meetings is not in their possession before the day is out. Last i Friday’s meeting of Government supporters, to consider the position the House was left in on the previous night, was no exception to the rule, for the most of what was said and done leaked out before night. We elsewhere give the members present, and so on, and right here we want to say a work in favour of Mr Fergus, the Minister of Defence. He has been directly attacked by some lion members, and at the caucus last Friday he was, we are given to understand, absolutely exonerated by the staten.ent made by the Premier. It was explained how, when he left on Ministerial business for the far North, Mr Hislop undertook the duties of the Justice Department, and performed them until he left for Oamaru, where lie initiated the correspondence with Judge Ward by a letter covering the petition. When Mr Fergus returned South and resumed the duties of his department, .he expressed aversion to continuing the correspondence and was anxious to be relieved of the responsibility. He was careful not to write any letter in connection with it without the approval of his colleagues. When the Ward-Christie trouble cropped up in Parliament,' Mr Fergus tendered his resignation to the Premier, but it was, of .course, declined, as he had .taken ho' individual action in the matter, the part which he played having received the unqualified approval of the Cabinet. We hear that the caucus was entirely satisfied with the explanation, and also highly approved the honourable course adopted by Mr Hislop in resigning his seat. So far as we can make the matter out, Mr Fergus is absolutely exonerated from any direct personal connection with the' case outside the Cabinet. He has acted all through with the soundest discretion and loyalty to his colleagues, although placed in an exceptionally difficult posi tion. As for Mr Hislop—well, no one not saturated by party prejudice will venture to assert that he was actuated by anything but an honest! desire to serve the Colony in his capacity of a Minister of the Crown. He commi ted an indiscretion, and that was the gravamen of his offence.