Untitled

Otago Witness, Issue 1973, 12 September 1889, Page 21

The Otago Witness, WITN WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY

IHURBDAY % SEPIEMBER 12, 1889.

THE WEEK.

" Nunquam nllud natnro, allad Baplentla <UxH."--Juvknal, " Qood nature and good Bonso must ever join."— Popj,

The discussion of the finances of the country is proverbially dry work, but Trait Fandi. there is room for a certain amount of human interest in the question which led the other day to so much discussion in Parliament about the investment of trust funds held by the Government. These trust funds consist largely of deposits made by the people in the savings banks, and theoretically the depositors ought, of course, to be anxious and critical about the way in which their money is lent out and dealt with by its temporary holders. As a matter of fact, however, no depositor really 5/>nbts for a moment the absolute security of his money after he has placed it in a Government' savlf^s bank, nor does any member of Parliamenii seriously pretend that such doubts could justifiably be entertained. The proposal of the Pubho Accounts Committee, that all investments of urust funds should hereafter be made by a bo td instead of by the Colonial Treasurer hiin3elf, is not in reality what it appears to be — namely, a "warning to depositors that their money is not safe, so long as it is entrusted to the disposal of the Ministry alone. It is, rather, a mere further instalment of- that mania for nonpolitical control of everything which is fashionable with some members jastnow, and the most conspicuous development of which was afforded by the recent appointment of a novice to the chief command of our railways. These relegations of public functions to a sphere " outside the operation of political influences" ought to be indulged. in with great caution. " Outside the operation of political influences" is a taking phrase in itself, especially with that large number of people who think, or say they think, that a politician is only a rogue called by a politer came, and that political influences are necessarily influences of a base and dishonest

Bat if we substitute for this attrac-

tive phrase the words " beyond the effective •control of the people and of the people's representatives," the matter seems somehow or other to take on a slightly different aspect, notwithstanding that the two phrases have (in this connection) precisely the same meaning. There is just the least suspicion of straining after effect discerncible in the report of the committee in question. A distant hint, that the Government might tamper with trust funds for party purposes would, perhaps, reflect a certain amount of credit upon the committee for keenness of scent for abuses. That they did not really hold the proposed change to be of much importance is shown by the fact that the instant the Treasurer said he did not care whether the change was made or not, and that, in fact, it would relieve him of a lot of trouble if it was, members of the committee began to hesitate over the prosecution of their own proposal. In fact, since these trust funds are perfectly and absolutely safe so far as the depositors are concerned, and everybody knows it, nobody really cares to see an elaborate point made about transferring their management from Jones, who is in Parliament, to Smith, who is not.

The Eailway Commissioners have passed unscathed through a bitter deour bate upon the manner of TriumTirnte. their appointment and the nature of their performances in office. It is just as well that there should have been such a debate. It would have been a reproach to the House if the question of the management of 15 millions worth of State property had been, hurried through without remark, while a matter of detail like the quota was accorded the honour of a nine days' stonewall. Beyond this concession to the general fitness of things, however, it does not appear that anything very useful was said or done. Mr Walker, a sort of viceleader of the' Opposition, sailed upon the Government to " explain " the appointment of Mr M'Kerrow and his colleagues ; and the Hon. Mr Mitchelson replied in effect that really he had nothing to explain — there the Commissioners were, and what more did any-

one want ?

Most of the talking was done by

Mr John M'Kenzie, who moved that "dissent of the colony to Mr Maxwell's appointment " should be shown bj a vote of the House. Mr John M'Kenzle's aspirations for the confusion of his enemy were, however, brought to signal grief by the vote somehow turning out to be" 10 to 49 instead of 49 to 10 — the 10 being of the M'Kenzie persuasion, while the 49 went in a block for Maxwell, This little difference of detail disarranged the " vote of dissent," and the member for Waihemo subsided, leaving the second Commissioner in possession of the field. With regard to Mr M'Kerrow, the general drift of the debate tended to the opinion that the Chief Commissidner was no end of a good man about things generally, but that it had not even yet been conclusively shown that he was all the better for knowing nothing about railways. Some people are really very hard to convince. We thought that that point

had been settled long ago.

Mr Maxwell is

understood to be an authority on railways, \ and it is generally understood that he considers Mr M'Kerrow's ignorance to be his c\ief 's most conspicuous qualification for the ofiSe he holds. Notwithstanding which, let us &\ hope that the chief may rapidly disposse&S himself of the qualification in question ; tL^reby becoming both a better master to Mr Ma\well, and a better servant to the public at l^ge.

In connection with the administration of justice, the inharmonious c&tehug Jame of Jellicoe has been a Tartar. as much to the fore during the week as that of Mr His.lop himself— which latter name, by the way, Sir Julius Vogel once-pointed out to be " the reverse of polish," a witticism as weak in application as it is inaccurate in etymology. Mr Jellicoe is a Wellington ' attorney of a type common in novels, especially in Dickens' novels, but not now often met with in real life. He started out on the enterprise of

proving the convict Ohemis innocent of murder, impelled thereto by the powerful agitation which arose in Wellington on behalf of the condemned man, and by the leaning shown towards that movement by a section of the Wellington press. In the course of his proceedings in connection with this undertaking, against which in itself nothing could be said, Mr Jellicoe fell foul in succession of the detectives, the Inspector of Police, the Minister of Justice, the Crown Prosecutor, the Premier, the Eesident Magistrate, various minor officials of the Government, and one of his own witnesses. The only person, in fact, with whom Mr Jellicoe appears to have been able to cultivate amicable relations was thennurderer himself, who, indeed, was the only one of the entire list that had, in Mr Jellicoe's opinion, failed to commit some one or other of the graver kinds of crime. Thus, the detectives were guilty not merely of perjury, but of a conspiracy to effect the judicial murder of an innocent man ; the Inspector of Police had aided and abetted both these offences, and had added several of his own ; the Minister of Justice had deliberately and maliciously closed all the avenues of escape which might otherwise have been open to an injured martyr ; the Crown Prosecutor had prostituted his position by craftily concealing facts which told in favour of the prisoner, and conveying evidence for the defence out of the way ; the Premier had blocked his (Mr Jellicoe's) way to her Majesty's representative; the Eesident Magistrate had decided his case " notwithstanding any evidence that might be offered;" and so on. Surrounded by these appalling infamies, from which his only relief was in the lapt contemplation of the blameless character of his convicted client, Mr Jellicoe made a slip which brought down heavily upon him the mailed hand o? Mr H. D. Bell, a high officer of Government, who but a few short weeks before had been offered, amid universal approval, a seat upon the Supreme Court Bench itself. Mr Jellicoe made, in short, the fa* al mistake of relinquishing slander and taking to libel. Confronted instantly with the consequences, he pleaded (among other things) justification ; struggled half through a hopeless case, collapsed, and was let off with a caution and the payment of cost 3. The allegation of perjury against the detectives had previously been dismissed without the defence being even called upon ; and from this it may be fairly argued, without injustice to Mr Jellicoe, that the charges against Ministers and officials would have broken down as hopelessly, had it even been worth anyone's while to look into them. Besides somewhat undesirable results for Mr Jellicoe, the two trials in which that busy legal gentleman has recently figured as prosecutor and defendant respectively, seem together to hare had the unlooked-for effect of finally disposing of all doubts as to the actual guilt of Chemis.

The Daily Times has administered a much

needed check to the greedi-

a ness of certain company pro«piowcry laud " moters, who are exhibiting Prospsttns. a feverish haste to profit by

the present excited condition of the mining share market. The article to which we allude, and which we reprinted in our last issue, was studiously temperate in its terms, in accordance with much the same principle as induces a magistrate to be lenient in his sentences where special temptations are shown to have assailed the offenders Whether a shopman by exposing his goods unmatched on the footpath invites the hungry and half-clad wayfarer to a first step in crime, or the general public by conspicuous infatuation on the subject of gold draws on the unprincipled company-promoter from exaggeration towards actual dishonesty, mildness in dealing with a first offence is equally in place. So the Daily Times w^s mild ; with the amusing result that the real condemnation of the offenders was immediately supplied in a much more wholesale way by some of the offenders themselves who, not content with the civil remonstrance which had been addressed to them by the press, insisted upon exposing the weakness of their case in a series of letters which must have produced something like real alarm among those who had been tempted by the dazzling prospectus under review. We do not allude to Mr Sew Hoy's own letter, since the special disabilities under which our enterprising townsman labours in attempting a press controversy might well make bad work of a better cause. Mr Hoy's defence, colourless and pointless as it admittedly is, is preferable as a defence to Mr Gore's florid defiance to the Daily Times to take the gold out of his. claim — as if the Times wanted it— and his bombastic threats about what will be done if the company does not float, which have nothing whatever to do with our contemporary's argument as to the means that were being taken to float it. Mr Sutherland's letter deals with matters quite beside the mark, and Mr Callender — the secretary of the promoters— fares worst of all. The attempt to invent a personal motive on the part of the management of the Daily Times failed to lift the badly cornered promoters out of the hole j and the conclusion of the whole affair is that the Times, having quietly done the community a much-needed service, is rewarded by the comfortable consciousness thereof, and passes calmly on to other and more important subjects of discussion, leaving the snapping and snarling aroused by its action to quiet down a3 best it may.

Since we have once or twice had something to say about the Ward-His-

lop matter, and shall in all

An Kcvolr.

probability never have anything to say about it again, we do not like to refrain from a last word in the way of kindly parting with Mr> Hislop as a Minister — a parting which we hope will be not an adieu but an au revoir. Ministers are human, and in these colonies neither the safety nor the emolument of the position are such as to justify the lelinquishment of private business in the interests of the work of the State. Under these circumstances it is no wonder that occasions should arise in which the private and the official interests of a Minister are simultaneously engaged upon the same subject. So much should be distinctly recognised as unavoidable; unless, indeed, we want our

Ministers to be all either millionaires or carpet-baggers. When such occasions do

arise, a Minister may make a mistake; but mistakes of the class we are discussing may differ among themselves as much as black from white. There may be deliberate favouritism, or corruption, as a consequence ; there may be more or less accidental clashing of action, followed by an ill-judged denial of the existence of anything of the sort; and there may be a mere error of judgment in shaping a course, followed by a frank admission that such an error has occurred, and a quiet and dignified intimation that the consequences will be accepted. It is needless to add that no one who ever knew Mr Hislop would think *of imputing to him a consciously crooked action, nor a falsehood in selfexculpation. He made a mistake, of a kind from which anything of the nature of dishonour was wholly absent ; censure followed, and he laid aside, without the faintest display of theatricalism, but with admirable dignity and courage, the official position which he had been led to misuse. Nothing, in fact, in his official life became him better than the leaving of it. His record as a Minister is such, and his character both as a citizen and a politician is such, that we believe if he returns to the House, and even if he returns to the Ministry, a welcome will be frankly accorded to him by both parties. If such a welcome is deficient in the ele ment of actual cordiality, it will be due to those minor failings of the late Colonial Secretary — failings, that is, of manner, temper, and the like — which, like little sins, are both the most difficult to conquer and the hardest to forgive.