RESIGNATION OF MR FISHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1951, 11 April 1889, Page 27

RESIGNATION OF MR FISHER.

AN EXPLANATION OF THE , DISSENSION.

The Hon. G. Fisher's resignation reached the Premier at 9.30 on Saturday. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, April 8. The following statement is made to-night by Mr Fisher's local organ, the Post : — "On the Ist of April — a very suitable date for euch a proceeding — the Premier wrote to Mr Fisher I informing him, with the usual professions of pain and regret, that the Government had decided that they could not justify in Parliament his action as Commissioner of Customs in regard to certain excise prosecutions in Wellington, and that it was therefore desirable that he should resign. The prosecutions referred to are those against several brewers under the Beer Duty Act — two of which have been decided, and some of which are still pending. The facts connected with them, so far as the action of the late Commissioner of Customs is concerned, were briefly these : On returning to the colony in December last, after visiting Victoria, Mr Fisher was informed that a prosecution had during his absence been initiated against a certain brewer, who for obvious reasons we will simply distinguish as C, and he was a3ked by wire to stop proceedings until he arrived in Wellington. He was willing to do this, but on com- j municating by telegraph with the de- j partmeut, and finding that the Hon. Mr | Hislop, who was acting as commissioner in his absence thought otherwise, he at once assented to the case being proceeded with. On resuming charge of the department himself he learned from the Crown solicitor that not one but several prosecutions were contemplated, but that in one case it was not intended to take action as it was a very little oae. Mr Fisher would not accept this excuse any more than Mrs Easy was willing to do when it was urged by her son's wet nurse, and he ordered that if one offender was prosecuted all should be. Subsequently it was decided to firstbringtwo test cases against A and B, respectively. These cases were protracted in court for many weeks, and a conviction Was at the end obtained against A while the case I against B failed. It was evident that the law was rather uncertain. In the meantime C addressed the commissioner, stating that he did not wish to take advantage of any technical defence, and that if the department was satisfied that an offence had been committed he would place himself unreservedly in the commissioner's hands and submit to any fine which the commissioner might deem just or which any court could inflict if a conviction was obtained. Mr Fisher referred this letter to the permanent head of the department, and learned in reply that it had been customary to deal with deI faulters in duty by accepting the payment evaded. In one case in September last one i brewer had been required to pay £49 5s 4d duty on 73 hogsheads not duly entered in his books. There was no prosecution in that case, and the decision was come to by the permanent officer without reference to the Minister. Mr Fisher might on this have acted in the case on his own responsibility, but he did not do so. He waited a few days for the Premier's return from the Te Kooti campaign, but that being' delayed he called a Cabinet meeting for early in the forenoon of the last day on which one of the informations against C. could be laid. His colleagues could not attend till late in the afternoon, and then one of them delayed the proceedings until it was too late to lay the information which Mr Fisher had sent over to the court to have laid as soon as his colleagues decided that it would be desirable proceedings should be taken. ' As the brewer C, had, however, unreservedly offered to pay the maximum fine, if required, and the permanent officer had recommended the acceptance of his offer to avoid the uncertainty of law proceedings, we fail to see that the effiuxion of time in one case out of several mattered materially. The full penalty of £200 could still be exacted in regard to the other cases against the same brewer. They are still being proceeded with in accordance with the instructions given by Mr Fisher in deference to the views expressed by his colleagues. In the case already decided against A the head of the department in reporting on a petition for mitigation of the maximum penalty recommended that the fine should be reduced from £200 to £100, and Mr Fisher concurred in this, but finding that his colleagues did not he again waived his opinions and acted on those of the Cabinet. These are the plain facts of the case, and they establish two points. First, that Mr Fisher so far from thwarting the permanent officers in their desire to protect the revenue, throughout accepted their advice, and would have acted on it had it not been overruled by the interference of his colleagues, to whose opinion, however, he cheerfully yielded when it was expressed even in a most unusual manner. Under these circumstances, as Mr Fisher had throughout given effect to the decisions and wishes'of the Cabinet/it is difficult to understand what the Premier can have meant in saying that the Cabinet could not support him in Parliament in that action. Parliament could not, if Ministers kept their own counsel, have been informed of what the commissioner and permanent officers have proposed to do. It would only have known what had been done, and that was what the majority (not Mr Fisher) had decided upon. He would, of course, have had to support that action in Parliament, even though he personally did not approve of it. To put forward his action in regard to these customs prosecutions as a reason for demanding his resignation was therefore a very shallow pretence. There were other reasons behind. The Cabinet has not for a long time past been a happy family. Personal disagreement between its members have been of very frequent occurrence, apart altogether from Mr Fisher, who, as a Minister, has, we believe, shown a commendable desire to restrain his naturally hasty temper. He has been a party to very few if any of the' personal altercations which have taken place, but on a variety of public questions he ' has very openly and decidedly differed with the Premier's policy, and has j sided with what may be termed the Opposition section of the Cabinet. Probably the ' Premier thought that if Mr Fisher could be got rid of the other members could be more easily manipulated. It is well known that Mr ! Fisher strongly disapproved of the Premier's action in the Te' Kooti matter, in the selection of a' successor to the late Mr Justice Johnston, in the constitution of the railway board, in regard to the appointment of engineer-in-chief, as to the \ necessity for a material alteration in the property tax, as to the Premier's views on land nationalisation, as to the proposed amendment of the Charitable Aid Act by the establishment of pauper* farms, as to the leasing ; of the , Canterbury runs, and as i to the proposed diversion of the North ' Island Trunk railway from the central to a Taranaki route. The presence of a Wellington member in' 'the Cabinet was naturally enough specially obnoxious to the Premier in view of his ' well-known intentions in regard to this question ; of the railway route. , Sir Harry Atkinson is not ! the man to patiently brook firm and decided! opposition to biswillon the part of anyone who

is in his power, hence no donbt the first .possible pretext was seized on to force Mr Fisher's retirement. Of course it may be asked why, differing on I so many and serious points of policy, Mr F.isher did not retire of his own accord.' The answer is simple. There were other and still larger questions of policy on which he did agree with his colleagues. There was an Education bill to the preparation of which he had given much time and attention, and as long as itwas at all possible to continue to work in harmony with his colleagues for the good of the colony it was his duty to waive minor or personal considerations. It is a serious responsibility for any Minister to break up a Ministry because he cannot have his own way in everything. No Government could be possible on such lines, and only by a large extent of mutual concession can responsible Government be carried on. The action taken by the Premier, in demanding Mr Fisher's retirement on the beer duty prosecutions question, did^not, we, believe, command by any means, the unanimous concurrence ,'of the Cabinet but it rendered a break up absolutely inevitable. Had Mr Fisher not resigned, the Premier could only have got rid of him by resigning himself, a step which would have involved the resignation of the Ministry en bloc. The Acting-governor wquld certainly not have taken the responsibility of dismissing a Minister on such grounds as could have been alleged against Mr Fisher, and the whole Ministry must therefore have gone by the board had Mr Fisher not resigned." I may say in reference to this that Ministers deem themselves bound to decline to furnish as yet any information as to what passed between themselves and their late colleague leading up to his virtual dismissal. Full information will be made public when the proper time arrives. Meanwhile I am in a position to state that this version is not only manifestly inconsistent, but also inaccurate, in several respects. It is not a fact that Mr Fisher could not have been dismissed without the resignation of the whole Ministry. On the contrary it is quite clear he could have been dismissed, and I have no doubt that he would have been had he not tendered his resignation just in time to avert it. It is stated that the Premier con- ! suited Sir W. Fitzherbert yesterday on the [ subject. This is utterly without foundation. The two did not even meet, or seek to do so.