A LAST WORD.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 6048, 13 September 1894, Page 1

A LAST WORD.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Though a man had all the excellences which " the friends of Mr Burn " (vide N.O. Times, 11th September) see in their friend Mr 8., and even should be vice-president of a Labor union, he yet conceivably might be out of place in the Waitaki High School, so that the public interest called for his removal, and at the same time for silence as to the reason for his dismissal. In a question whether that was so in this case, the constituted judges are those whom the interested community—town and country, Education Board and Education Ministry —has placed in charge of the public interest in question. And what is now proposed is, on behalf of a dismissed official apparently conspiring against his judges, a Liliputian revolution of individuals putting themselves above the law by putting their will in place of the judgment of the nation's publicly trusted representatives. These judges are not infallible, as other judges are not. But is there to be appeal from their fallibility to an infallibility of the "friends" or Labor Union partisans of the malcontent official whom they have judged an unmeet occupant of the position he held " under them ?" To speak of them as hanging without even afterwards trying ii to assume that, giving him no reason for the dismissal, they had no reason for it. On the contrary it. ought to be assumed, as by "law-abiding" citizens, that men placed as the Governors are by the community—local, provincial, national —in charge of an important public interest, would not take the grave action of removing a leading official without reason assigned, except on grounds which to them appeared as calling both for the removal and the reticence. The assailants know well enough that simply dismissal without reason given is not, on the face of it, an outrage calling for a revolution. This they show by alleging or hinting at this or that corrupt motive as what must really have influenced the judges; or again, by speaking as if Mr Burn were so wonderful a being that a really honest motive to dismissal is in his case inconceivable. The suggestions of motive are mere guesswork. The only thing really known, to the calumniators or to the community, is simply the fact of dismissal without reason given to the person dismissed. Of course the Governors knew the reason, and thus had the qualification for judging that is constituted by knowledge of the case. Their assailants, setting themselves in opposition to the nation's judges, are disqualified for the usurped censorship by ignorance of the case. Scornful aversion to such proceedings is to be expected from intelligent friends of real freedom.—l am, etc.. Not a Patriot of the Sxreex Corner.