OAONUI HOUSEHOLDERS' MEETING.

Opunake Times, Volume VI, Issue 282, 21 May 1897, Page 2

OAONUI HOUSEHOLDERS' MEETING.

As we stated in a previous issue we received a letter through Mr G. W. Gane purporting to be signed by some 29 householders who were present at the meeting held at Oaonui on April 26th last. In a foot note Mr Gane said, " I hold the original, this is a copy, you are at liberty to peruse the original if you so desire." Notwithstanding this assurance of Mr Gane's we had so little confidence in hi 3 truthfulness from previous experience that we received the assurance with the usual grain of salt and preferred to have the confiimatipn of some of the alleged signatories before we should think of publishing their names to a document which, on the face of t,, showed that there must have been deliberate misrepresentation before these people could have been got to sign their names to it. That our knowledge of him should force us to take such a step is very regrettable, considering that Mr Gane holds Her Majesty's Commission of the Peace, which should be a kind of guarantee of good faith for anyone holding it, and that in public matters at any rate their actions would be honorable and above b->ard. We have confronted a number of signatories with our correspondent's report of the meeting, and after carefully reading it they admit that it is substantially correct, aud repudiate the letter sent us by Mr Gane as being a true copy of the one signed by them. On Friday, the 14th May, we had an interview with Mr Gane, and saw the original letter signed by these householders, when, to our unbounded astonishment, we found that after obtaining their signatures he had deliberately altered the copy sent us by making additions thereto and deletions therefrom, so that the copy sent to us is not a true copy of what the householders signed. This action on his part we look on as tantamount to forgery, and when committed by a man holding Her Majesty's Commission of the Peace calls for an enquiry into all the circumstances, as such a a man in such a responsible position cannot be expected to retain the confidence of the public, aud it is of vital importance to them to be assured that those entrusted with the administration of justice are above suspicion.