THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1894. THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVI, Issue 2277, 6 August 1894, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1894. THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

}Yith which are incorporated the Wellington independent, established 1845, and the fffiw Zealander.

Capt'AlN Bussell has given a special complexion to the financial debate, with his allegory of the “Old Man of the Sea.” According to his criticism the Bank of New Zealand is irretrievably ruined. He either meant that, by his extremely pointed reference to the Bank, or he meant nothing. ! Etrjpped from all euphemism —and there ! -yras precious little euphemism about it—i the speech .declared plainly that the Colony will either have to guarantee further or accept ,the very consequences 0 f „ refusal of .aasistafico which a similar refusal w/mld have entailed a m<®th ago. Mr Buick w'*'o addressed himself to the same opinion as the Leade'l’ of tha Opposition. But he treated the subject more loglflauy and more candidly. Without complete candour there cannot, we may remark in passing, be any satisfactory logical reasoning. Captain Bussell only sees two alternatives —the Bank’s ruin or thelpss.of many millions guaranteed by the State. Mr Snick goes a step further, to the point, in fact, j whence he can see that if the Bank’s busi-' ness and the State’s credit are to bo saved the State must taka the Bank over and run it as a State concern. These are the two extremes of the ground of criticism covered by the debate. Is it a pity that the question was raised at all ? Timid souls think very decidedly that everything would have been better left unsaid, whether true or false. But timid souls are always absurd. The world is full of timid souls who are always wanting to run away and to get the world to run away too. The majority of the world, not to put too fine a point on it, is composed of timid souls, who domineer under the mask of respectability. Their first rule is that nothing that .is courageous, candid, thorough is respectable, ,Jt is not that they believe in this cowardly definition. But being unable to look .things ia the face, and being unwilling to admit .thei fact, they take refuge in a specious theory f with a sounding title. These kind of; people may regret that the discus- j sion ever went near the subject of: the Bank of New Zealand. The plain fact is that everyone, without any sort of exception, who read the reports of the discussion had heard ton times worse, ten .times a day, in the streets. The discussion from first to last, with all the pros and cons, .for ip the debate men stood up for the Bank, ,wf.s .nothing but a reflection of the various shades fit ppblfC opinion on which the limelight has been thrown filming the last month. In the present condition of public opinion, which is remarkably out- j spoken everywhere, the absence of fill re-; jforenco to the Bank would have been re- • gfus-fied universally as a tacit admission on the psrt of the Legislature that the Bank jras in thp gravest danger. The situation could pot bqign ored, except by the timid and foolish- It iequi/ed firm handling, and it got it. The pbmtjop of the Bank remains exactly where it was .before the debate began- Th»d e b ate has/’jpy the two sides .of the question, simply made it clear to the public that, 'having' gor , cepted the new departure for the rpasqus: given at the time, it must wait and ,watch | with patience, in the hope that things may' go well enough to avoid paying up tinder the guarantee, and in the ,certainty, that if that ,hopo s imi realised the stat« ean retrieve the position by taking the. Bank over as a State concern. There is mo.. doubt that the State is between these two eventualities, with Its guarantee of two millions. It is not more so in consequence of the discussion ; it is ip fact farther from the second alternative than it would have been had the discussion passed the f?ank over In silence. As to which of the two sides is correct—it would be idiotic at the present stage to enter into that question. The .Government and fke Bank have, between them, done a certain thing which has, inier alia, made people talk a good deal. In spite of all that talk, they have ; to carry out the plan on which they have determined. The main fact is that a now system of management has been determined upon. Tho future depends on that management. But people who criticise the future rashly take up tho rde of prophet in a generation to which prophets are unknown. It is always better, instead of insisting that the future must be had, to help cheerfully in the work of making the future better. If that is to be the outcome of the discussion there will be nothing to desire from the discussion. If it should not, then there will be nothing else to regret on account of the discussion, j

THE PREMIERSHIP AND THE LATE PREMIER.

In constitutionally governed countries, political testaments are not regarded as binding on political parties. In such countries the Premier is the uncrowned king; uncrowned kingship is subject to the rule which for every “ The King is dead,” provides a prompt “Long live the King.” In this case the succession is always by election, direct or indirect. The new Premier has, in other words, to be approved by the party to which ho belongs. In Mr Seddon’s case, the Cabinet, on the demise of their chief, agreed to act with him, after he had been sent for by the Governor, until the party decided who was to lead. The House met, the party came together, and decided that Mr Seddon should continue. Between the two decisions Sir Robert Stout re-entered politics, having been elected for Inangahua. He explained last Saturday at Wanganui that he then acted at the request of the late Mr Ballance, whose dying wish it was that he should lead the party. The announcement has certainly been made at a juncture when, as Sir Robert urged, it is impossible for any one to impugn his motive in making it. Sir Robert has spoken his mind plainly about certain acts of the Ministerial administration, and he has uncompromisingly attacked the Ministerial policy as announced in the Financial Statement,with the result that the Government majority shows no sign of serious dissatisfaction with the occupants of the Government Benches. He has not approached any of the party with a view to get political support. He has, on the contrary, confined his efforts to the Representative Chamber entirely, so far as the members of that Chamber are concerned. His is a novel and quite unique position. He is addressing the country and acting the part of a more than candid adviser to the Government. But that is immaterial, except as a corroboration of his statement of the impossibility of impugning his motives in making the announcement he has made. Whether the party was aware, when last session it confirmed Mr Seddon in the Premiership, that Sir Robert Stout had been requested to take the Leadership we are not aware. We certainly never heard that it was made aware of anything of the kind. If it had been • we doubt ' very much whether it would have , made a different arrangement. We remember that it had a very strong predilection for Mr Seddon on the ground freely stated by many of its members that he had earned the stop. The same feeling was shown very decidedly by many of the members who attended the funeral of the late Premier. Much was said in the public press at that time and up'to the formal confirmation during the session that followed of the wishes of Mr Ballance. But though urged with considerable skill, the plea had no effect on the party. Sir Robert, who knew all the circumstances, showed a praiseworthy reticence about his position, which no imputation of his motives in ro - entering Parliament was able to induce him to break. The same may he said of the fact that he maintained that reticence throughout the election, and through the unsettled period which marks the first weeks of every new Parliament. So much is due to Sir Robert from every commentator. Whether Ministers were aware of the fact stated by Sir Robert on Saturday at Wanganui, we have never boon informed. Mr Seddon] indeed, gave the country to understand that he certainly was not. But whether aware or not, he and his colleagues must have been perfeotlywellaware of the party’s attitude and of the consequent impossibility of giving effect to any bequest their late chief may have made. The Ministry might easily have been broken up when the House met in 1893, but the party would not have put Sir Robert Stout into the Premiership. Sir Robert’s reticence at the time, and the continuance of the Seddon Ministry, must, in view of any possible knowledge on the part of its members, or some of them, as to Mr Ballance’s wishes, be regarded, if it is to be regarded in any way in this connection, as showing a clear appreciation by all concerned of the fact that political testaments cannot be regarded as binding on parties. Wo are expressing no opinion about the fitness or unfitness of anyone for the Premiership. We are simply stating the facts as far as we have knowledge of them.

FROM DARKNESS TO LIGHT,

The Railway Executive are at present in darkness. Inasmuch as they made the darkness for themselves by meeting the Minister in private, without the presence of reporters, they deserve no commiseration whatever. On a public question, meeting a public man, to have a discussion which in no way affected private interests, the Executive ought to have courted publicity. The Minister of Education has told the House that the meeting was just like any other public meeting, except that the reporters were not present. It was open exactly like a public meeting in every respect, except that it was not public. The result of that very important omission is before the public. The Railway Executive and the Minister have been libelled from the North. Cape to Invercargill, they have been libelled long —for the eight months that have elapsed since the general election—-and they will be libelled so long as the pages of Mansard hold together. Explanation has been made by the Minister, and accepted by his assailant, who was misled by some singularly unscrupulous and more than ordinarily inventive person. But the acceptance is not in the same page of Mansard, and things that are not on the same page which ought to be seen together never are seen together-, The minister will thus have only partial relief from everlasting libel. But the Railway Executive will have no relief at all, except what they may obtain for themselves by unmasking Sir Robert Stout's wretched informant, whom they have inforentiqlly accused of lying to their detriment as honest men, and to the scandal of the Government as honest administrators. On that unpublic public meeting the charge of f ‘ spoils to the victors ” has been formulated in the press and in Parliament against the QVyejfofohSf; That charge having been withdrawn go for a? anything occurring at that meeting js concerned, another charge comes intd view, yfo., ihiat tlje’ Railway Executive Is rilling the Commissioners, and ruling them badly, Bbt in accordance with any form of Justice OKQOO Wild justice of revenge. That second oli.ailjfo w.o leave to all concerned to meet, for ting purp9|o f>f saving their honour-. Sir Robert Stojft bat declared in the House that a list of proscribed was drawn up by the i Executive, that it *syas taken to the Commissioners, that the Ijoupinissioners attempted to respect it by £h e salaries or altering the statue of t#ose of whose names it consisted, in the hope that they might resign. Is that true or false ? It if} false so far as the Government is concerned j blit what about the Railway Executive and the new Commissioners ? We leave the matter to the Railway Executive to probe further. All we nosi say to them is that if they nad held a public mooting without leaving out the publicity nothing of this kind could possibly have happened. To be quite frank, had they trusted the press they would have been saved by fair reports from the colossal misrepresentation to which darkness has subjected them. We may remark, in conclusion, that it is no part of the Likcyal doctrine to distrust the press, and not a (xmdition of progressive modern politics fo''so‘aic .rcdngp in darkness. Distrust of’ the "press 1 is, <?n. fhe contrary, a very old Tory failing. 1 Ih the dajgi of the early struggles yhen'‘newspapers y*re proscribed and pressmen'sent to gaoE the opposition came from privilege,' ftom' wealth, and from power, '/foe enemies’of, freedom were the enemies of the If i in these days of the freedom gained by those early struggles, the press is to lie ignored, those who ignore it can only blame themselves for the consequences.