THE MULVANEY LETTERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2250, 15 April 1897, Page 55

THE MULVANEY LETTERS.

THE PREMIER AND THE HON. T. W. HISLOP. a, Wellington, April 7;

Borne rather warm correspondence has taken place between the Hon. T. W. Hislop and the Premier with leference to the celebrated Mulvaney letter, which led to the uuseaticg of Mr Wilford- for the Suburbs. The following is a copy of the correspondence : — Wellington, March 16. The Hon. R J. Seddon. Wellingcou. Dear Sir, — I notice from the leport of the Post of your speech at the Lower Hutt that you are represented as having stated that £40 had been given for Mr Wilford's letter to you introduciog Mr Mulvaney. "iTou aie report- d to have been condemned for it. .May I ask you if you are properly reported, and, if so, upon what, authority such a statement was made? I need scarcely saythat the statement has no warrant in fact, and that if you aie correctly leported you must have been made the recipient of a ino^t malicious and untruthful i-eport. [ trubt that you will see that it is only fair to afford me the information asked for at the earliest possible moment, so that I may correct the impression which may have been created by the currency given to your remark as reported.— l am, Ac, T. W. Hislop. • Premier's Office, "Wellington, March 30. Dear Mr Hislop,— l trust you will not think ' that any discourtesy was inteml-d by my not j replying to your letter of the 10th inst. eailier. i From reasons which I am sure you will appreciate, there is no necessity for me to go into the merits of the question mbmitted in your letter under reply, and on further x'erusal of the paper mentioned (also the New Zealand Times.) you will agree that replie3 to your interrogations are unnecessary. — Yours truly, It. J. Seddon. March 30, 1597. Hon. It. J. Seddoii. Dear Sir, — I am ju3t in receipt of your letter dated the 30th. 1 legret that I cannot agree with the opinion expressed therein. I had no wish to discuss questions of opinion. What we both have to do with was a question of fact. 'J he only meaning' which cou'd be put upon your leimik", as reported, was that I hart paid iMO for j a letter written to you. I may tuke it that you i are correctly repoited, from the face that you do I not deny it. Yoa therefore have helped to disseminate a maliciously untruthful statement, j Your obligations to one affected by it are obvious ; J therefore desire- to repeat mv request. You kindly inform ma upau what authority you made the untruthful statement about myself, and I am j not unreasonable in suggesting that it is your duty to let me have it to-morrow at least, with the least possible delay. — Your 3 , &c, T. W.- Hislop. Wellington, April 4. Hon. R. ,T. Seddon. Dear Sir, — You have not deemed if expedient to reply to my last let' cv. lam therefore entitled to coma to the belief that you are satisfied to lest I under the imputation tint you have invented, or i at )ea3t, without leasonable cause, have adopted, a ■ malicious and untruthful statein>nt, und that, ! though you can produce no femblauci: of authority • you desire to remain unexplained nvd uuconi tradicted. Those who have known your action in the past with regard to other matters cannot t.e astonished at y- ur utterances in your sp:cch. You do not cjnnne yourself to one set of misstatements in your jeferetice.s to me in respect, of two matters other than the Wilford letter. You repeated the ttatim'-nts long ago invented by yourself, t,h<> falsity of which had to your knowledge beca demonstrated to you raoie than once. It would teem that, resting up >n the assurance of I continued hupport from v majority whom you believe 10 be permanently bent to your will largely by influences suc'i as I have be'en partly instrumental in exposing, you are determined to defy the ordinary rules of accuracy and courtesy which 1 regulate the utterances of honourable men, and j which, until your accession to office, ruled those of fen holding such an office as yours. It was sufficiently -humiliating to any citizeu of the colony that it was possible for one intimate (as Air Wilford seemed to have b^en) with your methods to presume in a series of letters (for Mr Mulvaney's was only one of those written to you by Mr Wilford) that you wer* dishonest anil corrupt enough to set aside the principles contained in tbd Corrupt Practices Act, which was i fir.->t "strongly" advocated by the Gtev pirtv, of . which you and myself were members, and which | act was amended and made more string?nt j under your Premiership and by your agency. But ! surely it ought to be felt as positively degrading that a Premier should, in his public utterances, excuse one who acted upon so contemptiblo an opinion of you as Mr Wilford eDjoyed. Yef, as if j you were not sitisfled with stamping Mr Wil ford's i suggestion as correct, you, with the malicious purpose of injuring a political fo?, had the htrdii hood to promulgate a statement atrociously false. I do not wonder that you shrink from replying, and that you should say that rep'y is unnecessary. But I have to slate that unless you are content to be branded as one worthy to bear the description conveyed by a very simple word, you must relieve yourself of the imputation which your own conduct has cast upou you. You know | now, if you did not know when you issued your i statement, that it could not be justified. A •' manly instinct dictates only one possible course : | perhaps even yet you will follow it. I repeat that, however you may be regarded by those who servilely fawn upon you while you are in possession of power, all who have instincts of honour and truthfulness can only entertain one opinion of a Minister of the public who can see no wrong in Mr Wilford's suggeationa contained in his letter, and who can call to his aid against a political opponent malice and mendacity. These were j both present in your statement, which you permit , to remain active. I do not know whether you will answer tbis letter, but I intend ti publish the correspondence between ub unless I receive a satisfactory answer. I make this intimation so that, if you have any wish at any time to complain of the publication, you may know that I shall be responsible for it.— Your3, &c, T. Hislop. The following letter was received immediately after the above had been posted, and before it could have reached the Premier :— Premier's Office, Wellington, April 3. j Dear Sir, — As you do not see your way to agree with me, all we can do is to agree to differ, for I have nothing to add to my former letter, except, perhaps, to say that it is I, and not you, who have _a grievance, seeing that the Mulvaney letter was under seal, and that I alone, by all that was honourable, just, and right, should have received it. On a reference to the New Zealand Times report of my remarks at the Hutt you will see that I am ronorted. to have stated that tbo inci-

dent was regrettable, and the Conservative press, with few exceptions, had condemned the course taken, as you yourself— if you are correctly reported—termed it by the party. However, what I actually said, when incidentally referring to the letter episode, could in no way be rea-onably construed to have the meaning you attach. I did not Siiy or even imply such a thing. Both the the New Zetland Times' and the Post's reports are condensed by abbreviations and omissions, and it thus often happens that what is published leads to misconception. Anyway, I fail to see how any unprejudiced person could faiily e.ive the meaning which you do to what I am incompletely reported by the Post to have jocularly stated. 1 know nothing, and have not been told anything, in reference to the monetary transactions of Mr Mulvaney beyond what appaared in the public prints during the eUctioii petition proceedings and your recent record meeting at Peiouc. Seeing that my time is more than fully occupied with public business, you will, I am sure, acquit me of any desire to appear discourteous when I say it would serve no s;ood purp se to continue this correspondence.— Yours .siucerely, R. J. Seddon. Wellington, April 5. Hon. R J. Seddou. Dear Sir,— l have to acknowledge your letter of the 3rd inst., which was received by me since writing you yesterday. You take the opportuuity of repeatiug the misstatpmeuts made by you at the Hutt, the effect of which cau only lie to divert attention rrom the main issue. I will, however, shortly deal with them :— (i) According to the evidence, it is not a fact that Mr Wilford's letter was sealed or closed. It wa3 handed to Mr Mulvaney open after being lead to him. (2) It was a letter of introduction, and according to common Fciue and the usages of society it belonged to Mr Mulvaney. (3) la addition to the above it con1 stituted a crime, and I defy you to mention a i single occasion upon which the use of am h a letter, under anything like similar circumstances, his ever been condemned (4) Your statement as to the attitude of thf Conservative press is absolutely incorrect. (5) You deny that lam right in attaching the meuiius to your remarks, as reported, but you do not say that the report is wrong. The meaning of your words, as reported, is obviously as I have stated it, and if you. did not intend to convey that meaning I have no doubt that immediately upon my writing lo you you would have said so. (6) You say you know nothiog as to Mv Mulvaney's monetary transactions, except what was reported. This being so, your statement, as reported, whether jocular or .serious, warrants everything I said iv yesterday's letter. (7) While for the first time, after three weeks for consideration, you indicate that I have put a wroDg interpretation upon your remarks, you do not say what other possible meaning you intended to convey. I have been, however, credibly inform»d that a number of persona present at Mr Wilson's committee meeting at Petoup, at which I am informed you attended and gave instructions as to the methods of the campaign, came fresh away from that meeting echoing your statement in the sense in which I have interpieted it. (8) Your only excuse seems to be that your remark was niiule jucular'y. There is no evidence in the statement of humour or wit after and bef< re condemning me. You say that you had found that a letter of yours had fetched £40, and that as it was such a valuable •document you misrht have beon consulted bofoie it w<»s sold. (9) I have no desire to continue thin correspondence, but I cannot adn.it the cogency of your reason for discontinuing it. The public bmin^ss with which your time is more than fully occupied seems to be, to a'large extant, the misrepresentation of others, and it cannot but bs advantageous to you: to have an occasional diversion by having the truth pressed upan you. — 1 am, yours. obediently, T. W. HiSLO?.