GEMS FROM “HANSARD.”

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4890, 23 November 1876, Page 2

GEMS FROM “HANSARD.”

No. I. MR. R. WOOD AND THE AGENT-GENERALSHIP, It is impossible to put before the readers of any New Zealand newspaper detailed reports of the speeches made in the Assembly. Brief outlines of speeches are useful, and may convey cerrectimpressions as to thescopeof the wholewhen principles are involved ; but such outlines are likely to mislead when speeches are mainly compounded of political generalisations and personal charges.^ Rightly, therefore, but little comment was made upon speeches delivered during the debate on the motion of Mr, Andrew respecting the Agent-Generalship. But in Hansard the speeches during the debate appear as the makers of them wish them to appear, and it is possible to fairly reproduce and . comment upon some of their points. It is appalling to note how utterly reckless the assailants of Sic Julius Vogel were—reckless alike of the contents of documents they ought to have ready, and of the charges that they made (assuming, of course, that they did not intend to speak falsely) —their speeches show a want of comprehension of the meaning of language which must be held to be discreditable.

Take Mr. Reader Wood merely as an example. He Or any other man is entitled to hold and to express freely the opinion that Sir Julius Vogel has never done anything tO 1 benefit New Zealand. Mr. Wood or any other man is entitled to say that bethinks Sir Julius utterly unfit to be Agent-General. In either case it is a question of judgment. One may believe Mr. Wood’s judgment on such points to be not sound ; his honesty or his desire.to be fair need not be questioned. But any person not besotted by envy, hatred, or malice must be shocked when Mr. Reader Wood directly misrepresents the effect of public documents, or chooses to be oblivious to parts of such documents which do not accord with that which he desires appear. ... For instance, Mr. Wood speaks of Sir Julius Vogel as having dealt “with Dr. Featherston in such a way as to compel him to complain by letter of the Premier in England making accusations against him of the intolerably disrespectful nature of my letter of Jan. 10 th.” Would Mr. Reader Wood be surprised to learn that the charge of disrespect was made by the Government in New Zealand, as to a letter written while Sir J. Vogel was on his way to England, and of which Sir Julius was in ignorance until, by telegram, he was informed that the Government had resolved not to allowit to be recorded? All these facts are clearly shown in the immigration correspondence laid before Parliament. But Mr Reader Wood wanted support for his allegation that one ground of Sir Julius Vogel’s unfitness to be Agent-General was that he quarrelled with everybody. Therefore, it is to be feared, Mr. Reader Wood purposely chose to speak of the charge of “intolerable disrespect” as coming from Sir Julius Vogel. At all events, Mr. Reader Wood would not have made much in support of his allegation, if he had said that the charge was the charge of the Government, who had received the letter complained of, and was communicated to the Agent-General by Sir Julius Vogel, who had received a telegram announcing the decision of his colleagues. Mr. Reader Wood did not dare to repeat the accusation that Sir Julius Vogel, against the wish of his co-agents, forced the deposit of the proceeds of the £4,000,000 loan with the Bank of New Zealand in London. We believe that no member of the Assembly dared to repeat that charge during the session now happily ended. It answered its purpose last session ; and only one or two newspaper editors, who can afford to be utterly careless o£ truth, have repeated it since the presentation of further correspondence on the subject to the Assembly. But Mr. Reader Wood quotes from this correspondence the paragraph -in-which the three Agents—(he incorrectly describes the letter as from the Crown Agents)—evade the direct charge of Sir Julius Vogel that they had misrepresented what took place as to the deposit of the money ; Mr. Reader Wood’s object being again to find support for fiis allegations that Sir J. Vogel quarrels with everybody . and has a treacherous memory. This is the paragraph quoted;—“As regards the accuracy of paragraph 6 of our letter of the 13th of May last, we have to state that it appears to us that no good ban result from any discussion on the subject; but we cannot acquiesce in the correctness of your recollection of past events, as narrated in paragraphs 4 and 5 of your letter, under acknowledgment.” This letter of May 13 is the one published as No. 10 in the loan correspondence presented to Parliament last year, and of which Sir Julius Vogel had no knowledge until the Parliamentary paper containing it reached him in London. What is “paragraph 6?” So far as it is quoted in the recent correspondence it is thus;—“ We should here explain that, in order to carry out an arrangement which as we have since been informed by the solicitor employed on the occasion, Mr. Vogel had entered into with Mr. Russell, provision, had been made in the contract with Messrs. Rothschild that the money should all be paid into the Bank of New Zealand.”

Mr. Mackrell, “the solicitor employed on the occasion," has stated that Sir Penrose Julyan, one of the Agents, came to him for information as to what had passed ; but Mr. Mackrell explains that he did not give to Sir Penrose any [such information as the three Agents say they received f?om “ the solicitor employed on the occasion.” It is placed Beyond doubt by the correspondence that two of the three Agents could not possibly have gone to Mr. Mackrell for information ; because Mr. Mackrell says, in the fewest words possible,, that those two gentlemen were present with Sir Julius Vogel when the deposit with the Bank of New-Zealand was suggested, and again when it was agreed to. Further, Mr. Mackrell expresses the greatest surprise that Sir P. Julyan should have “so misunderstood" whatwastoldto him. Thecorrespondenceshows that Sir Julius Vogel sent to the three Agents a copy of Mr. Mackrell’s letter, and challenged the accuracy of “ paragraph 6 and it is in the face of that challenge, supported by Mr. Mackrell, that the three Agents reply “ it appears to us that no good can result from any discussion on the subject.” It is conceivable that those gentlemen in so writing honestly believed it to Be as well not to further discuss the matter. Their accuracy was directly challenged as to a statement which was used, and was admirably calculated to be used’, to the personal and political prejudice of Sir J. Vogel. They did not venture to reply that that statement was true, or was justified so far as any excusable misapprehension could justify it. Mr. Reader Wood, if he has read the Parliamentary papers on the subject, knows that this fairly represents the correspondence ; but he wanted to convict Sir Julius Vogel of quarrelsomeness and bad memory, not to show that Sir Julius had been wrongly accused of favoring the Bank of New Zealand. If Mr. Reader Wood has read the printed papers, he knows that the latter part of the paragraph he quoted refers to points which are comparatively insignificant; and it is a warrantable assertion that he recognises that the reference to “paragraphs 4 and 5 of your letter” was meant only to distract attention from the ignominious avoidance of the charge of gross inaccuracy in “ paragraph 6 of our letter.” Yet what Mr, Reader Wood says is, that the latter part of the quoted paragraph shows that “we ought not to concur in the appointment of a gentleman to high office whose memory is admittedly so treacherous.” “Admittedly!” It is quite clear from the papers that Sir Julius Vogel does not admit it. Equally clear is it that, from all the essentials of the dispute, Mr. Mackrell says that Sir Julius V°gel is accurate, and that statements above the signatures of the other three Agents are not accurate. But Mr. Reader Wood wanted support for his assertion , that Sir Julius Vogel's memory is bad ; he did not want to make known the fact that the solid-

tor who actecb for the foiar Loan Agents has directly corroborated one of them as against the other three. Mr. Header Wood has used extracts from public documents in a sense not warranted by fairness ; but ha wanted to convict an opponent whom he hates. Prejudice may have influenced Mr; Header Wood ; impartial judgment of evidence would have been a hindrance to him. . Mr. Wood’s references to the differences between Sir Julius "Vogel and the three, other agents make it necessary to put questions which it might otherwise have been desirable not to put. The high position of two of the Loan Agents as Crown Agents, and of the third as Agent-General for New Zealand, has been paraded in aid of the assertion that Sir Julius Vogel is not fit to be Agent-General. Mr. Header Wood does not stand alone as having done this, and it may be done again. What, then, are the facts of the transaction as to which Mr. Wood quotes from a letter of the three Agents, although he avoids stat-, ing to what his quotation refers ? The published correspondence shows that Sir Penrose Julyan, who is one of the Crown Agents, and was one of the four Loan Agents, did not take a direct part in the negotiations about the' time of the arrangements for depositing the proceeds of the loan. The cause of his absence from the Agents’ meetings is understood to have been one that commanded the truest sympathy of his many friends. But it is impossible to doubt, after reading the correspondence, that Dr. Featherston and Mr. Sargeaunt were with Sir Julius Vogel whenever any decision re the loan was come to, or to doubt that each of those gentlemen was freely and fully a party to the arrangement with the Bank of New Zealand. If, then, Sir Penrose Julyan needed information as to what had been done, why did he not apply to Mr, Sargeaunt, who is with him one of the Crown Agents, or to Dr. Featherston as a Loan Agent? Sir Penrose chose to go to Mr. Mackrell; and Mr. Mackrell gives a statement of what he told Sir Penrose, which statement directly contradicts “paragraph andas directly supports Sir Julius Vogel. Sir Penrose Julyan, no doubt, only misunderstood Mr. Mackrell; but what of the other gentleman who signed the letter containing “paragraph 6? ” Did they know of the statements that paragraph contained ? Is it conceivable that either of those gentlemen could have believed those statements to be true ? Is it conceivable that either of them would have signed the letter had he known that such statements were contained in it? The correspondence evidences, it must be said, that the letter of May 13th was signed by Sir .P. G. Julyan, Dr. Featherston, and Mr. Sargeaunt, as Agents in London, for the management of the New Zealand Public Account, and not as Loan Agents. But the fact remains that two of them, as Loan Agents, had a perfect knowledge of the negotiations, so that the third need not have gone to “the solicitor employed oh the occasion,” for information as to what had beep done. The conclusion is unavoidable, that Sir Penrose Julyan misunderstood information given to him by ,Mr. Mackrell, for which he ought not to have, troubled that gentleman ; and that Dr. Featherston and Mr. Sargeaunt overlooked the fact that things within their own knowledge were misrepresented in a document to which they attached their names. That is an unsatisfactory account —but it is the most satisfactory one possible—of the coming into existence of a letter which, published in New Zealand months before Sir J. Vogel knew it had been written, was a year ago made the parent of much prejudice against him, while acting in London on behalf of the Government, and correspondence growing out of which has again, though unwarrantably, been appealed to by unscrupulous opponents, in proof of their assertions that he is not fit to act as Agent-General!