THE New Zealand Mail PUBLISHED WEEKLY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1896. THE SAVING OF THE BANK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1291, 26 November 1896, Page 20

THE New Zealand Mail PUBLISHED WEEKLY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1896. THE SAVING OF THE BANK.

One of the most courageous and highminded actions ever done by any Government was the saving of tho Bank of NewZealand in 1894. Moreover, nothing they have shown since in the way of good qualities comes so nearly on a level with those two virtues as the consistency with which this Government stood by the bank in 1895 and in 1896. The courage required in 1894 was of the first order. A great crisis suddenly presented iteelf; a gulf of disaster, widespread a,nd terrible, yawned; every interest in the country was threatened; reputations, happiness, stability were involved everywhere. No tune for enquiries; very little for reflection. The occasion demanded decision, sharp and short, it found tho right men in power, and it got the decision. " Salus po2>uli supremo, lex " sounded in their ears like a great tocsin. They recognised that law; they obeyed it; they throw the shield of the Public Credit before tho Public Safety. Politically, there was a temptation to do nothing. It was a temptation strong to weak men, but to men of minds high enough to conceive and cleave to a single lofty purpose it was no temptation at all. Weak mon would have let the country fall in order that their political enemies who had been the creatures of the bank might be foremost among the ruins. The Government was not only brave, but highminded, and the crisis was averted. This is plain history, clear as complete. Energetic rapidity was the sovereign indispensable method, without which the highest courage Avas unavailing. So rapid was the action in 1891, and so energetic, that Parliament and country were fascinated. Every feeling was absorbed in the almost passionate admiration of the earnestness and boldness of a great resolve Presently the air cleared, the pulses everywhere became normal, the rare mood of complete admiration passed away, the more common mood of thinking evil asserted itself. A school of thinkers arose, which, i being small-minded, could give no other cause for the earnestness and rapidity and I masterfulness of the Government policy than a bad motive. Out of this arose, not I the " Ward scandal," as it was once called by the calumniators, but the scandalous \ Ward persecution, as it will always be

termed by men capable of -weighing- probabilities, of judging evidence, and appreciating facts. The one fact at the bottom of the whole fabric of imaginative malevolence was the financial collapse of Mr Ward's mercantile position. It has been said that 6000 questions before a committee found no information. If that is true, then the prosecution were disappointed that they could not find facts to substantiate their assertions. But that plea of the 6000 questions is a most unworthy, as well as most shallow, plea. Unable to find anything within the order of reference, the enemy wanted to go outside, and was very properly prevented. Those who had begun by calumny, ended by discrediting the report of the committee of 6000 questions. But another committee, composed chiefly of men hostile politically to Mr Ward, reported similarly, and that the public appreciated as a great fact. The most discreditable thing in our newspaper and political history is the necessity imposed by misrepresentation upon Mr Theo. Cooper to point out that not a single word of the evidence has thrown a shadow of doubt on Mr Ward's character, motives or conduct, or those of the Government.

The results of great actions are frequently the things that prove them great. At present the chief results are in the future, but those which we have are such as to justify the hope that the bank's affxirs will be righted before the end of the guarantee period. It is matter of intelligent, capable evidence, as well as matter of deduction from facts and figures, that, in all reasonable probability, the Colony, which saved the bank by the liberal use of its credit, will not have to pay a single farthing of the many millions sterling guaranteed. Boldness, then, we have every reason to suppose, has brought safety. Now, that is the combination of policy which in emergencies is the ideal. It is only another way of saying that the men composing the Government are the kind of men one would like to see at the helm in times of emergency. When difficult situations are safely faced, it is because those facing them are men of courage and capacity, men practical enough to be of single purpose, determined enough to act promptly and persistently, and full of care for the public interest. Such a character the story of the saving of the Bank of New Zealand has earned for tho chiefs of the Cabinet. The claim has been publicly contested and at great length. It has been made good, in the face of the most strenuous efforts to the contrary, in the most conclusive and public manner by impartial authority after the fullest investigation. That is the real story of the 6000 questions, and the true moral of the saving of the Bank of New Zealand.

THE OPPOSITION.

Mr Wilson was as good as his word on Monday evening. He devoted a brief space to the Opposition, and in that brief space he showed how very unhappy a family they would be were they to succeed in their only policy, and get tho Government out of office, lie was polite enough to most of tho atoms of this heterogeneous collection. For Captain Eussell and Mr Bolleston, for example, he had pleasant words whenever they deserved treatment of a pleasant order. But to the faults of the heterogeneous collection he was merciless. The National Association and its allies have the audacity to tell us that the Opposition as it now appears is not the combination from which to expect a Government in a certain event. This is untrue. We will not say deliberately untrue, but if not deliberately untrue, it is the untruth which is the outcome of that peculiar stupidity into which too much political thinking of the hopeless order sinks the ordinary mind. The new administration which the Opposition is offering the country consists of Captain Eussell, Sir Eobert Stout, Mr Allen, Mr George Hutchison, and, if they can get returned, Mr G. F. Eichardson and Mr Eolleston, with Messrs Bowen and Stevens in the Upper House. It is a coalition Government which we are offered instead of the homogeneous compact force we have. It is a Government which professes to continue the present policy on many of its lines. We are asked to believe that a collection of men who are divided on every point can do better for tho policy than the men who think cordially along the whole line 'from one end to the other. Captain Eussell is the only one who has had the courage—perhaps one might say foolhardiness —to make a protest against the inevitable conclusion. Ho has advanced the common theory that an Opposition cannot be expected to have any policy. That is» true. It is fair to say that when the Opposition is called in, it will be time enough for that set of doctors to prescribe, and it is a just enough claim. Everyone who understands constitutional 2 )rac tice concedes that to the Opposition. But what then ? Tho concession is absolutely useless to any Opposition that can show a united mind. To a heterogeneous collection of fortuitous atoms, no opportunity for making up its mind upon anything can be of any use. These fortuitous atoms agree on one thing only before they have turned out tho Government, and they can agree on nothing after. A policy is impossible to them. That is why they have not formulated one, not because oonstitu ■ tionally they are not called upon to do so. The constitutional custom is convenient, but it does not hide their absolute lack of cohesion. Mr Menteath, with some dim recognition of the fact, said he would rather follow Stout than Seddon. Let him give his experience of the last coalition, the Stout-Vogel. If his views are not conclusive on the subject, let Sir Eobert himself contribute his views. These two ought to be conclusive on the question of coalitions. We want no more coalitions ill New Zealand,