THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES. SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1895.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10417, 20 July 1895, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES. SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1895.

It is impossible to read the debate on tlie motion ;to go into Committee of Supply Without feeling a -sense of humiliation;at the degradation-to which the, colony has been subjected by the Hon. Mr Ward's proceedings in London. .Frpni whatever point of yietvr the matter is looked atifc is undeniable that misrepresentation has beep resorted to in order to perform the financial 'coup for which the Treasurer went Home. Ministers and their supporters loudly assert that the credit of the colony wasi jiever better, and that.. no subterfuge was necessary. This only, makes it the more humiliating that misrepresentation should hare been used. TJiat the prospectus of.the loan puts matters in a light in which candid colonists are unable to see them, and that the speech of the Treasurer at, the rooms of the London Chamber of Commerce was calculated to produce an entirely false impression calls ,for no further proof. The statainent . that securities to the value of ,£3,000,000 were unpledged was intended for the ears of those who were asked to rely on ; the finances of the colony, and now that the statement has been relied on the Treasurer has no other recourse but to return to the colony : and brazen it out in the face of the. true owners of those securities by getting a subservient House to back him up in the assertion that they may be used in "an emergency" for the purposes of colonial finance. It was once thought that the various institutions of the country, such as the Government Life Insurance department and Post Office Savings Bank, had separate trust funds and separate investments. These have gradually been borrowed and replaced by debentures of various kinds. Still it was thought that these debentures, being kept separate, might be regarded as representing distinct trust funds. We are now to be taught on the authorityof the strongest Government we have ever seen, and with the sanction of the most popular Parliament we have ever had, that somehow these (savings may at the will of a Minister V'be swirled into "the maelstrom of (colonial finance." The legal position ■of the securities as formulated by Parliament is plain enough. Section 19 oi " The Public Revenues Act 1891" runs : " All securities held in the colony for public moneys invested shall be held in the joint custody of the Audit Office, the Under-secretary and the Secretary to the Treasury, and shall be Becured under three. keys, one of which shall be held by each of the officers above-mentioned. ■ All such securities held in England shall be deposited in'such bank or other safe custody as the Treasury or Agentgeneral from time to time directs, to the joint order of the Agent-general and the Audit Officer in London." Securities held in this position are those which the Treasurer assured his hearers were " unpledged," which he now assures us means " pledgeable"— i.e., lawfully and honestly liable to" be pledged, or in other words sold to pay interest on colonial debts. All we ask is that throe who have invested their savings in the institutions of the State shall know that it is intended to render them liable to be used for

the exigencies of the Ministry of the I day. I£ the people choose to ratify that, well and good. As to the debate, we have very little to say. An Opposition consisting of 16 men can only raise a dignified protest against the barefaced proceedings by which the < Government uses trust funds to retain ' power; it cannot hope to make head- j way against these proceedings, but it is bound in honour tb protest from time to time lest it should be accused of acquiescing ia what is done in the name of the colony. All honour to the small band which for years has in this way endeavoured to sustain the honour of the colony. Perhaps the Minister who j comes worst through this unwholesome j ordeal is the Hon. Mr Reeves. Ho is in one sense above his colleagues. He is a man of superior education, and the effect of this manifestly is. to develop certain sensibilities to which his colleagues are strangers. The effect, however, is curious. A sense of loyalty, creditable in itself, comes to be a humiliating possession in the hands of this gentleman. ' It impels him to attempt to justify -what he knows to be discreditable, but this, he has to .do in methods different from those adopted by his colleagues. Mr Reeves, for instance, " denied that the Minister for Lands had ever said he knew all about the Bank of New Zealand," adding, " Well, that must be another example of the veracity of Opposition newspapers." There are few thinking men in this colony who would not wish that what the Minister for Lands said on this subject on the 20th_ of February last had" been left unsaid; fewer still who would not wish that the Minister for Lands could .now deny ever having said' it. Yet, alas! the contradiction has to be made by one who was not present, himself contradicted on the ' spot by, one who heard it. It will be refreshing to investors in Government Life Insurance, and Post Office Savings Bank to read the assurance of this gentleman that " the people who lent money to these departments had no right or title to those securities." As for the Premier's speech, it was of the usual character : firm and strong of a surety, but callous and brazen more suo. Reading through the various speeches it is impossible "to avoid seeing that' Opposition members had by' a long -way the best of it. It was not because they are better debaters, but simply because, having an honest cause and a. good case, they were able to address themselves simply to the point and nothing but the.point. On the other hand, the more honest of the Ministerialists laboured under the manifest disadvantage of having to . back up a discreditable and mendacious , proceeding for party purposes. Loyalty iis always a good quality, and one can i even pardon certain offences comj mitted from a sense of loyalty, but it i ishumiliating to see men of good inj stincts dragged through, tlie mud in ' support of such doings as these. Gentlemen who have against their better i instincts supported these proceedings on party lines must bear in mind that I sooner or later they will have to answer j for it. The only good that can result j from Captain Rtjsselt/s amendment is to-show that an intelligent section of the colony, for the present held under, is alive to the credit and honour of the country as'well as to the interests of the industrious and saving portion of the community. The spirited debate ! which followed from it amply attests this fact.

As a rule parliamentary papers'cannot •be conscientiously recommended, for the perusal of the, general reader, but an exception may fairly be made in favour of a bulky document of 10S pages, entitled "Pakeha and Maori," a narrative of Mr Seddon's tour through the Native districts of the Ndvih. Island in the early part of last year. We must pay the Premier the compliment of saying that, though his own speeches occupy the larger portion of the space, the paper makes really good reading.' Somebody or other has contributed a poeticallyworded introduction, -with quotations from Wordsworth and Tennyson, and suitable references to the perilous incidents of the trip—the same -writer being apparently responsible " for the narrative and comments by .which the> speeches are • occasionally varied. The motive of the 'trip is thus explained in the introduction :—" For years the Satires have taken up a negative position. They have been sullen. . . . Why not deal with them as Europeans are Mealt with ? Ministers go from centre to centre so as to keep touch -with the pakehas. . Why not deal with the Maoris in the same way ? " And really the Premier seems to have accomplished his self-imposed task very well. His versatility and general ability, together with his sympathetic gifts, are admirably displayed in the. speeches which he delivered in the King country and the district north of Auckland. He listened patiently to a multitude of minor grievances, and invariably spoke with a mingled firmness and geniality calculated to produce a happy effect. We have no space in which to recount the various subjects,—ranging from the land question to the desire for a telephone—which were discussed between Pakeha and Maori; but the Premier evidently did his best to remove dissatisfaction, to generate goodwill, to. preach the cause of civilisation and education, and to make himself agreeable without sacrifice of principle. He adroitly talked a good deal about the Queen, "the mother of us all," and if he drew the long bow how and then in telling the , loyal Natives that her Majesty would be delighted at hearing all about them, the sin may fairly -be reckoned as venial. He displayed quite a turn for metaphor and the Maori manner of oratory. " There was rain on the hills; now when the sun shines it disappears. There was a mist when my friend last spoke. The mist that existed was that I waa of , opinion you had no grievances. . . Now the Sun has just ~ appeared and dispelled the mist, because he has told me you have grievances." JSfot bad for an amateur, this; though doubtless it does not reach the grand style of the Maori himself : " You (to Mr Caeboli) bring with you the king of the island ; come and receive the good wishes of the people; you bring with you the treasures of the colony. This is the ancient landingplace of our ancestors, who brought thoir canoes from Hawaiki. It was here the ancient canoes of Te Arawa and Matatua arrived. Of these two canoes, Arawa landed at. Makgt'u, and Matatua at Whakatane, Your canoe, Takitimu, passed down the East Coast. You had controlling power on your canoe, as we had pn ours, Arawa and

Matatua.

Welcome, that

you may gee the descendants-of: those *

who came by the canoe Matatua— these, the remnants, who are now before you. . ... Welcome the Premier this day." The introduction of " the Premier " seems to introduce a flat modernity into the picture; but, for the rest, we .might be reading Ossiast. Our readers can hare plenty more of the same kind if they like to send 2s to the Government Printer.