The Oamaru Mail. MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 4 October 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail. MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1880.

It is stated, in a Press Association telegram, which has been published throughout the Colony this' morning, that Railway Commissioners Conyers and Lawson have received notice from the Government that their services will be dispensed with. Our local contenijkonirv goes a little further, and says, '* \Y g believe that jNXr. "W. N. Blair, at present engineer in charge of the Middle Island, will become Commissioner of Railways for all New Zealand," and, although the publication of this announcement by our contemporary is no evidence of its authenticity, it is not improbable that our contemporary enjoys the confidence of the Ministry. There is a peculiar fitness in the remarks of our contemporary and the policy of the Government that denotes political kinship, pur contemporary is quite welcome to its new acquaintance, We shall not join issue with it. The saGrifice would be too great. In another vear or so it will have cause to Jjionni a bereavement, and will, "while the body to which it has evidently affianced itself is yet warm, embrace .mother. " Such is life, dear hoys ; " such, at all events, is the easy and accomodating virtue of some high-class journals. Our contemporary may yet succeed in obtaining a subsidy from the Hall Ministry, Jt is on the right track; and unless it be jnduced by plain criticism to turn back, we shall shortly be treated by it to a new heading somewhat after the following style ; a The Johnny Hall Gazette, with which is incorporated the North Otago Times." We admit tliat our contemporary wavers in its Allegiance to the Ministry. There is occasionally: tin allusion to the maladministration of the Government. But that is politic, and may even be produced by the remains of the old respect for honest and just government. But there is one point upon "which our contemporary is thorough. Let ftnj one read the paragraph announcing the dismissal of Messrs. Conyers and Lawson in its issue of to-day, and he will not fail to discern evidences of the old vigor that was once brought into play in support of a nobler cause. There are the ample and expressive adjectives tumbling one over the other in their rich profusion. There are scathing denunciations, almost hotenough to burn holes in toe paper upon which they arc printed. But they are not aimed" at the Ministry this time. The Ministry received its castigations from our contemporary on the same subject months ago. It is now the turn of the " irreverent, irrational, cavilling politicians and platform orators of the parrot species," who are never tired of shrieking in their grandest style that the country was being governed by Commissioners" to be withered up by the heat of oui' contemporary. Cannot those of our readers who can afford the leisure to read the North Otago Times recognise the forcible English of its chief ? Now, who really denounced the appointment of these Commissioners 1 Not only the " shrieking parrots," but, as we have already hinted, our contemporary in the days when it was clothed in its right mind ; and at whom does it now hurl its anathemas 1 The libera! party and all those in Parliament who are untrammelled by party obligations. The paragraph before us is the most substantial announcement our contemporary has yet made that it has turned its coat. It now displays the patchwork lining of that garment in all its unsightliness. "Was there anything to cell for this change! The gravamen of the offence committed by the " parrot species" of " platform orators" is that they " shrieked" thai the country was being governed by Royal Commissioners. "Were they wrong 1 We; are told by our contemporary that these persons knev not what they said. But I our contemporary go&s .on to say that " it was also held that th.e Commissioners' Reports would lead to nothing." It then shows that the Civil Service Commission's report led to the 10 per cent, all-round reduction, an iniquity whiph emanated, from the Commission the appointment of "which our contemporary now upholds, and "was earned in the House a<*ainst- the conscientious convictions of a number of those "who voted |qi* jt an act that has been denounced by the people" from one end of the Colony to the other—an act arbitrary, oppressor p, and mejin. Those who denounced the appoifttpient of the Commissions knew full "well what phey were talking about. They said in effect that it meant the usurpation of the prerogative of the people's representatives and the possible perpetration of acts of injustice- It is our contemporary that is wrong. It now scarcely ever opens its mouth to gpeak but it puts its foot in it; and yet it sets itself up as a mentor, and ■ presumes to administer a rebuke to its intellectual superiors—why, it evidently does not know. It confesses ; that the representatives of tlie people, ' whom it has the temerity to .rail by all the ugly names - that it can string together from its office dictionary, said that the country was being governed by Coni missions, and that they inveighed &g»jnst such an evil. They did this persistently; and this is what has occasioned bar storm of angry words. If oiy gontemporarjrjhad jiothing better to oflgr

as a reason for the appointment of this Commission than that it was the originator of the all-round ten per cent, reduction—if it could give no better excuse /for attacking its old friends, the Liberals, than that they, anticipating th<at some such evil would arise, had been guilty of working with might and main to oppose the relegation of political power to Commissions—it should have held its peace. The dismissal of Messrs. Lawson and Conyers is also said by our contemporary to be due to the recommendations of the Civil Service Commission. Does it wish us to believe that such an appointment as that of Mr. Blair—which it has heralded—could be attributed to a recommendation from the Commission? Yet one is as likely as the other.