THE PREMIER AND THE AUDITORGENERAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 2360, 18 May 1899, Page 28

THE PREMIER AND THE AUDITORGENERAL.

The Premier's attack on the Auditorgeneral, and his branding of a responsible State servant as a partisan, has naturally created indignation, if not surprise. Everybody "who has followed the course of politics knows that Mr Warburton is perfectly right as well as they know that it is the custom of the Premier to rough-ride over everybody who dares, to question any act or statement of his, no matter how conscientiously or legitimately. It will be remembered that the Premier last session brought down a proposal on the Estimates for the expenditure of £25,000 on technical schools. Failing to get an assurance from him that no portion of that amount would be expended on denominational schools, Messrs Montgomery, Hutcheson, Meredith, and others stonewalled the item for several hours, and eventually Mr Seddon, in a fit of dudgeon, accepted Mr Montgomery's amendment that the vote be struck out, and himself voted for it, and constituted the majority of one by which it "was carried. During the year that had elapsed between the close of the 1897-98 financial year and the passage of the Estimates the Government had made two grants — one of £3500 to the Wellington Technical School and the -other of £911 to the Dunedin. The first of these sums was issued under section 3 of " The Public Revenues Amendment Act, 1896," and, therefore, required to be included in the Estimates and accounts for the year, and embodied in the Appropriation Act. This was not done. The Dunedin grant was issued under the authority of imprest supply, but was' not specifically sanctioned by Parliament, as required by law, during the session when the imprest supply was passed ; therefore Mr Warburton, as a conscientious official, merely did his duty in adding a tag to the year's accounts, pointing out these irregularities. Mr Seddon's statement that he took Parliament into his confidence in regard to the matter is the merest subterfuge, because it was not until the day after — not the day before, as Mr Seddon stated to a Masterton deputation — the vote of £25,000 was struck out that Mr Seddon casually mentioned to the House that he "might say that £1500 had been paid to the Wellington Technical School and £911 to the Dunedin. To say that Mr Warburton should have taken this, even if he knew of it, as""*an official explanation is of course laughable, especially in face of the fact that there is no indication that it was accepted or endorsed by- the House. It is fair to suppose that if Mr Seddon had passed by in silence the "tag" of the Auditor-general very little notice would have been taken of the circumst/ance by the public generally. However, having accused himself in an endeavour to excuse himself, and having at the same time shown how hard under the Seddon regime is the lot of the man -wiio dares to do his duty despite consequences, the Premier has given the colony -a further object lesson of his desire to ride rough-shod over law and precedent.