The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER, 7, 1883.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLI, Issue 6956, 7 September 1883, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER, 7, 1883.

Consummate impudence is a great power in the civilised world. It is nowhere more so than in the Australasian colonies, where society has not yet settled down, and, from people not knowing all about one another, a man is generally taken for what he asserts himself to be. It was apparently on this principle that Mr Dargavillb presumed last night in his defence, in the House of Representatives, against the finding of the Committee appointed to consider his recent slanderous charges of corruption against the Colonial Treasurer and the Premier. Although the Committee consisted of members from both sides of the House, and included the Opposition leader, Mr Montgomery, and the Opposition whip, Mr Steward, it decided unanimously that the charges were entirely unproved. Yet, at the opening of the debate last night, members on both sides of the House wisely, and with gentlemanly forbearance, counselled moderation, and left as wide a loophole as possible for the member for Auckland City West to creep out of, with, at least, some show

of self-respect. Mr J. Buchanan" and Mr Montgomery referred to the decision of the Committee, and the present power exercised by the Treasurer in Parliament as sufficient in themselves to dispose of the charges against that gentleman, without any formal censure of the accuser being, needed to add force to the verdict thus practically given. Mr Bryce on the Ministerial benches—who is always worth listening to, and is always listened to, notwithstanding the weakness of his voice—with a kindliness of heart for which many of those who only know him as a resolute Statesman would scarcely give him credit, suggested to Mr Dargaville that it was not the wish of the House to humiliate him, and that it rested with him at once to terminate the discussion by the lightest acknowledgment that he withdrew his charges, as made in haste, and regretted that he uttered them. The Native Minister went further, and even stated that if | on such a light expression of regret, which no gentleman need be ashamed to make when he found he was in error, not being received as sufficient, he would himself vote in favor of the discussion ending there, even if in doing so he were to vote against his own colleagues. But it was soon found that all this moderation was thrown away on Mr Dargaville. He abused the Committee and its Chairman, quibbled about the evidence, and applied opprobrious epithets to the witnesses, adhered to his completely disproved charges, expressed his contempt for the House, and challenged any man in Auckland to settle the dispute there. It needs little argument to show the folly of all this idle rhodomontade. The Committee consisted of three Ministerialists, three Opposition members, and Mr Mason, the Chairman, one of the most completely impartial and upright men in the House, and their decision was unanimous. And it was clear that Mr Dargaville himself was at first satisfied that he would got fair play, for otherwise he would certainly, and could only consistently, have refused to appear before them. But he seemed to have taken for his model to copy the “Artful Dodger” in Dickens' “Oliver Twist,” who, when brought before a London Police Court for detected thieving, exclaimed, “ I am an Englishman, ain’t 1 1 Where are my privileges V’ Mr Daroavillb thought it one of his privileges to make slanderous personal charges against the character of his political opponents, and then saw fit to style that an allowable, and, even more, commendable expression of free opinion. Suppose Mr Dargaville, in his turn, were some day charged, in a debate in the Houaeof Representatives, with embezzling the funds of the bank which he managed some years ago, would he deem that an outspoken and proper expression of opinion 1 Yet any one might just as well defend such an outburst of rabid political hatred. To invent a purely conjectural conspiracy between the “ self-asserting over-bearing Treasurer” and the “ weak, obsequious, sycophantic Commissioner of Insurance,” for the purpose of defrauding the public, by the wrongful investment of public money, was one of those efforts of lively imagination and refined expression which spoke for itself, and needed no comment, or got it. But Mr Dargaville, in trying to wriggle out of the verdict of the Committee, thought he had hit upon a complete defence of himself, in the fact that he, poor inno cent ! had been entrapped into confining himself to a single charge of political corruption when all the time he had plenty [of others in the back ground. Surely, even Mr Dargaville could scarcely have the effrontery to assert that he was so anxious to facilitate the progress of public business and the close of the Committee’s labors that he was willing even to sacrifice his own fair fame, and keep back all his other strong charges, and irrefragable witnesses in the background. That would indeed be “ very like a whale!’’ One other little piece of rhetoric, and wo have done with Mr Dargaville. He challenged the House to expel him, and said he would appeal to the judgment of the electors of Auckland City West. A bright judicial tribunal, truly ! Just the very men who, after listening to a little of that warm oratory which their present member attributes to his enthusiastic temperament, would calmly weigh as jurymen in the box, or judges on the Bench, the evidence put before them “without fear or favor,” and “ a true verdict give, according to the evidence.” Such rubbish as that did not impose for a moment even on his own political associates last night, and he would have done better to have taken the counsel of Mr Buchanan, Mr Montgomery, and Mr Turnbull, than his own. Cool impudence may go very far with great success, but, if it goes too far, its possessor comes to grief, as perhaps Mr Dargaville is aware by this time.