AN IMPEACHMENT OF THE PREMIER.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 93, 5 August 1895, Page 2

AN IMPEACHMENT OF THE PREMIER.

The following declaration has been made by the Rev F. W. Isitt: —I, Frank W. Isitt, do solemnly declare that two statements, reported in the press to have { been made by the flon Mr Seddon in the House, are absolutely untrue. 1. I did not say to him that “If a Royal Commission were appointed, I would withdraw a charge against a police inspector.” It was never proposed that I should lay that information. I had no power to do more than use my individual influence to induce its withdrawal. Even this I did not promise to do, except by implication. I simply, with the most kindly intentions, and without making the threat imputed to me by Mr Seddon, asked him if the fact that a member of the deputation had said that a prosecution was pending against an inspector was an additional reason why the prayer of the deputation for an enquiry into the whole administration of the police force should be granted. I suggested that submission of such a case to a Commission would involve much less pain than its submission, in the first in stance, to a criminal Court. 2. I have never, in any place, or under any circumstances, said that, “ My only mission in life was to destroy the Government, and the Premier in particular,” and if Mr Sedion really asserted that I did, I can only regard it as a wilful and deliberate falsehood. Thirty-four other members of the deputation, who were present when the reported conversation took place, will, I am sure, give an unqualified assent to this statement. Believing that Mr Seddon’s astuteness is devoted to unworthy ends, and that his democracy is a sham—knowing that many members of his own political party regard his word as absolutely unworthy of belief, and having had many reasons to endorse this conviction—l have said, edrtoiially and on the platform, that, in the interests of the people, of morality, and of temperance reform, I regard his position as Premier as a colonial disgrace and disaster. My late experience of the cunning with which ho laid hold upon a side issue raised by one individual to defy a deputation representing a large couvgu fcion of workers from all parts of the colony, and my knowledge that he spoke untruthfully at and after the interview, confirms that bslief.— (Signed) W. Iswy.