Mr Ward's Speech in Parliament.

Southland Times, Issue 13494, 30 June 1896, Page 3

Mr Ward's Speech in Parliament.

} We regret exceedingly (says the Napier Telegraph of the ISth inst.) that the painful scene in the House on Tuesday afternoon last should compel us to again refer to the unsavoury Ward scandal. Had Mr Ward, in hia speech -to the House, dealt in a different fashion with his view of what might be said in condonation of his conduct, the fitting plan would have been to let it speak for itself. But his violent and slangy diatribe compels some sort of reference. Instead of speaking in the calm and deprecatory ton» which would befit the position of a man brought face to face with the strictures in Mr Justice Williams' decision in the Supreme Court, Mr Ward displayed himself in the light of a reckless and baffled speculator, in a^rage because his schemes had failed, and who thought to minimise any reflections upon hia own conduct by accusing his opponents A man who meets in thia tempestuous and wrong-headed fashion comments such as those made by Mr Justice Williams, disgusts even those who, for friendship's sake, or for party considerations, might be disposed to think sb kindly of him as is possible under such extrordinary circumstances. This "you're another " line of defence is of no avail if reasonable people are to be the judges. Suppose it proved ...... the facts have no bearing whatever upon Mr Ward's case. The question is not whether other people have done wrong, but whether he has. If he has, then he should suffer the consequences. If others have done wrong they also should be punished. But in the meanwhile the position is that Mr Ward has been compelled to resign his positions in the Government, and to face the most direct and scathing reflections upon his conduct as that conduct has been dispassionately considered by a Judge of the Supreme Court. The proper way of meeting those charges is not by an exhibition of bullying abuse. That is all, we think, that needs to be said upon that sorry aspect of a still more sorry business. The question Mr Ward seems indisposed to face is the fact that aa a politiciau and as a Minister of the Crown, his conduct is more than ordinarily a fit subject for animadversion. Had he been entirely unconnected with politics, his actions as salaried managing director of the Ward Farmers Association, and especially the signing without due enquiry of a balance sheet false by scores of thousands of pounds, would scill have properly come under review by a J udge in the event of the liquidation of the company. So also would his trading on bis private account with the credit of the company he was paid to manage in the interests of its shareholders. But when it is remembered that he waa Colonial Treasurer ; that he introduced and carried through the House legislation pledging the colony to five and a quarter millions of money to benefit banks vitally interested in his affairs, and in the affairs of the companies he was connected with ; and that one of the phases of that legislation was introduced into the House by him seven days after the agreement between the two banks had been drawn up, and six days after he had given one of those banks a worthless promissory note for fifty-five thousand pounds ; then the utterly wrong conception of the position he chooses to take up is strikingly manifest. Then, again, there is the financial ruin to others that has grown out of this miserable business. Many poor psrsons took shares in the Ward Farmers Association, believing that its debentures were, as waa falßely stated in the balance sheet for 1895, over Mr Ward's own name, a "firstelass security." Those people have lost their money. The unfortunate shareholders in the Colonial Bank have also to submio to an almost total loss. These people deserve our pity, and we are of opinion that if Mr Ward had been thinking as seriously of their losses as he ought to have been, when addressing to the Houße on Tuesday last a tirade of heated accusations against others, he would have adopted a very different tone. But possibly he does not look at these matters as ordinary persons do. We are inclined to think that his views on what constitutes improper conduct are such that, if they were generally held, only commercial chaoß could result. Take, for example, his attack upon Mr Duthie in connection with the manner in which the Colonial Bank was induced by fraud to advance thirty thousand pounds upon a non-existent security. Having shown (as it is right and proper here to emphasise) that he was not in New Zealand when that fraud was perpretated, Mr Ward proceeded to make it a grievance that Mr Duthie had managed to become acquainted with the fraud "in a surreptitious manner." Mr Duthie denied that he had done so, bub it does not matter a jot, so far as the fraud itself is concerned, whether his denial or Mr Ward's assertion ia the more trustwoithy. The thing is that the fraud took place. How it was dragged to light cannot possibly affect the guilt or innocence of those involved. But this reminds us that Mr Ward's, utterances are not always to be taken without examination or corroboration. The suggestion that the manner in which an action is discovered affects the conduct of those responsible for that action has a parallel in what took place last session on another matter. Mr Earnshaw asked in the House if it was true that the Poßtmaßt«r»Gent r*l (i.e., Mr Ward), knew of an order that had been issued to his department setting out that all telegrams to or from Mr Ward and his firm, whether they were " urgent," "ordinary," or "delayed," should take precedence over all other telegrams and be transmitted accordingly. Mr Ward time after time — for the question was asked on several occasions— denied thac any instructions to the effect quoted were in any instruction book in the department, and he created the impression that Mr Earnshaw must be mistaken. But he was not. He persevered, and finally he compelled Mr Ward to admit that such an order had been issued to the operators, and that it had stood in a book in the operating room ab Wellington from tho 2Sth of April, 1893, until Mr Earnshaw asked his question in October, 1895. This is a comparatively small matter, but it shows that Mr Ward is not necessarily accurate when giving testimony in his own favour. Another instance of his unreliability occurs to us as we write. Some little time ago Mr Ward waa involved in an action brought by the Southland Freezing Company against Messrs Nelson Bros. Among the letters read during the hearing was one dated the 20th of April, 1893— a few days only, it will be noticed, before the ißsue of the order to give Mr Ward priority on the telegraph wire for his private buaineea— and it referred to fch.e eale

by Mr Ward to the Nelsons of the Ocean Beach Freezing Work?. Here is an extract fcfom^that letter : — "I have since been asked twice if it was true that the Nelsons have bought the works. I have, of course, emphatically denied it and said it was not true, as it may not suit Mr Nelson to have ifc known." The moral of thia ia obvious nough. It would have been much pleasanter to have been able to refrain from observations of this kind, but as Mr Ward (speaking in a place where he is privileged, and by law protected from fear of proceedings for any inaccurate statements he may make), has chosen to sow broadcast a number of vague charges couched in violent and slangy language, the task of criticising those utterances has been forced upon us. Ifc is, therefore, right to point out, first, that if everyone of the statements by Mr Ward in his speech to the House were false he could not be brought to book for them in a court of law, because the utterances of a member of Parliament in the House are ptiviledged ; aeoondly, that Mr Ward is not always accurate in statements affecting himself or his interests : and thirdly, that if he were the most truthful man in existence, and all his accusations against members of the House were true, and more than true — if every member were a " liar " and a " lag," and hopelessly dishonest — that would be quite outside Mr Ward's position as affected by the judgment of Mr Justice Williams. There would be only one moral properly deducible from Mr Ward's charges of widespread rascality turning out to be correct, and that is that the welfare of the public and the interests of morality demand that all offenders shall be punished aa they are found out.