Daily Circulation, 1500. The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1890.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XV, Issue 4743, 11 August 1890, Page 2

Daily Circulation, 1500. The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1890.

The Government have not yet decided what course they will pursue in order to punish Mr Hutchison. The Investigation Committee was purposely insulted with a view to relieve the Government of the indelicate position in which Mr Hutchison's charges placed them, and that Committee resigned, Having killed the Judge, the Government are now all the more emboldened to proclaim their sweet innocence, and to pose quite melodramatically before the country bb martyrs to an assiduous and righteous regard of all that is true and noble. The Government are now casting around them for some system of Ivestigation that wonld be less risky to their unsullied reputation than a Parliamentary Committee chosen by themselves and consisting of a majority of their own adherents. The Government may, by the exercise of the supreme power of wealth, quench suoh Investigation, or so constitute the tribunal that is to try them that their acquittal would be assured. To do that wonld be an easy task in the hands of men who are essentially politicians, educated in a uohool in which successful political scheming and dissimulation are considered to be so necessary that no other set of men than they are deemed fit to carry on the Government of the country. But the Hon Mr Hislop, who is naturally the leading spirit on the Ministeralist side in a matter that requires co much legal finessing- has played his oards badly. The calm dignity of demeanor which is one of the chief guarantees of good faith haß been entirely absent from Ministerial conduct in the Hutchison affair. That there was panic in the Ministerial camp was shown by the blind rush for weapons and the clutching at anything that was calculated to maim or kill. So numerous were the Ministerial methods by which Mr Hutchison was to be annihilated that one could not be expected to keep count of them. Having killed the Judge, Ministers are now going to kill Mr Hutchison, That will, they think, be better policy than endeavoring to clear themselves by a bold, open, and honest investigation untrammelled by legal quibbles. Probably they are right, The publia agree with Ministers that the greatest care is necessary in dealing with so delicate a matter as Ministerial doings; though, we think, they will not agree with them—when the time comes to either accept or rejeot them at the poll—that men whose political reputations need bo much protection should be given another lease of political life. If the truth were knownj it would probably be found that Mr Hutchison received the information on which he based his charges from a man Who, having once been a director of the Bank of New Zealand, ought to be acquainted with all the inner workings of that Institution,