SLANDERERS OF THE MINISTRY.

Colonist, Volume XII, Issue 1254, 1 October 1869, Page 7

SLANDERERS OF THE MINISTRY.

(From the Nelson Colonist, Sspt. 11.) A series of keen and not over-scrupulous attacks on the Pox Ministry may now b? expected to emanate from Nelson. Two ex-Ministers are to be resident in this city. One is already here, and his fine lioman hand, his political antagonism, and pet phraseology, could unerringly be traced in the leading columns of our contemporary on Saturday morning. In addition to these, there are Mr. Curtis, a staunch supporter of Mr. Stafford; and other members of the House including Sir David Monro, besides those who, like him, have a strong antagonism to Mr. Fox and his Ministry. These have a pliant journal in which to gain full expression to their views, and, accordingly, we find the well-known stylus at work, censuring the Ministry and their actions. But the thing is too palpable and will work its own cure. A Minister driven from office after enjoying its sweets for five years, is not likely to write otherwise than acrimoniously of those who ousted and succeed him. Accordingly, we fo-und on Saturday morning, a complete condemnation of Mr. Fox and Mr. Vogel, in the broad and accusative style which so astonishes people when they know it comes from the pen of a mau usually mild-masnered. "Mr. Fox," we are told by this authority, " has signally failed as a leader." He was " a nonentity in the Legislature," he wanted " stamina." " He is the facile princeps of vituperation," he is a" chip-in-porridge," and is condemned because his opinions are democratic. And here is the old way in which the same pen used to hint at charges it has not courage boldly to assert. The writer says, (we italicise the last sentence) : —

"A slander may be careless; careless slander is no uncommon phrase, and Mr. Fox's slanders are usually careless. It is not necessarily, although it may he, a conscious falsehood."

This is mean, the implication intended is plain enough, and the charge thus couched is ungentlemanly.

We remember how, some years ago, Sir G-eorge Grey used to be assailed from the same source in language implying want of faith and worse; and it appears we are now to be treated to a similar but still stronger method of assault on the Ministers, and all in a dilletante style, without giving these plain substantial grounds for such accusations. Mr. Vogel's finance is declared " weak and mischievous;" but this depreciatory remark is unwittingly turned into a compliment, for, adds the writer, as if narrating his own observation, "he was active in pushing it in defiance of friend and foe, colleagues and opposition leaders." Then Mr. Vogel must be a strong man, and his finance must have been neither weak nor mischievous, or if so, the whole House is insulted by this remark.

In the same article, by contrast to Mr. Fox, the departure of Wakefieid, Judge Bichmond, Eitzgerald, Sewell, "Weld, and Whittaker, are alluded to. Then, because Mr. Fox took exception to Sir David Monro and the Chairman oi Committees giving undue license to the language of the Opposition, occasion is taken to praise Sir David Monro, and to condemn Mr. Fox for having complained of this latitude to the opposition ; although last year, when Mr. Pox was in opposition, Sir David performed a singularly unparliamentary act, namely, taking the chair as Speaker (after the Chairman of Committees had appealed to the Speaker as auch), and keeping the doors locked, although the House was no longer in committee, as it cannot be when the Speaker is in the chair. This defeated a move of the Opposition and compelled a division on a certain question, which the Opposition desired to avoid. Since Mr. Stafford haß been in Opposition, it is the general opinion that the supreme rulers of order in the House have been to his faults not a little blind, and to his failings wondrous kind.

To such extent has the opposition of our contemporary permitted itself to go, that a paragraph was allowed to appear in the same issue on which a correspondent pointedly animadverts. It ia stated that Mr, Yogel, who touched he,re on his way to

Auckland, was, in the language of the paragraphic —

" Greeted with as strong a demonstration of disliku as ib was possible fov some twenty throats to give utterance to. What was unojt resented in Mr. Vogel's conduct was his attempt to raise the cost of the first necessary of life by imposing a duty on imported grain and flour. Fo personal indignity was offered to the honorable gentlenvm, but the popular voice could not have expeessod itself against him more forcibly in words."

The whole thing is a gross exaggeration. One or two persons, as Mr. Vogel passed, mentioned, in tones, which, (our informant said,) did not reach his ears, that that was the Minister who wished to tax our flour; and some sharp reply was made by one or two more; but it did not even attract the Minister's attention; and that it was "as strong a demonstration of dislike as it was possible for twenty throats to give utterauce to," is from first to last a mere iuvention, as discreditable and as baseless as the other assertion, that " the popular voice could not have expressed itself against him more forcibly in words." We have referred in another article, to " personality." Fabrications like this is that kind of personality from which the prudes of the press would do well to purify themselves. But this little attack—little in more ways than one— together with the article above alluded to, will show whut the Ministry may look for in Nelson. Periodical assaults from a portion of the press, inspired and directed by its Opposition surroundings; and,by-and-bye, some stone throwing from the platform.

(From the Nelson Colonist, Sept. 28.) Our contemporary, the JLxaminer, has rendered itself famous, (or the reverse,) for its persistent attacks on one or two members of the present Ministry; attacks, not upon their policy, but on the men, declaring Mr. Fox to be a " charlatan," implying that he was guilty of " conscious falsehood," asserting that Mr. Vogel was a

man of no principle, and that he was a jobber, who, as a Minister, would feather his nesfc in any way he could, and plainly declaring that he had done so by what could be no other than a mere " job." These general charges, which it is not uufair to view as clearly the product of personal disappointment and impotent vexation, are scarcely ever sought to be proved, except by inuendo which, if spoken in propria persona by a gentleman, would have been, in the circumstances, stigmatised as mean. The -Examiner, with what perhaps itmay think the fair balance of justice, is not over scrupulous as to fact in the service of its party, neither is it slow to make use of a name regarding which a financial lapsus is still remembered, and which our contemporary deems it advisable to drag up on all occasions, as if it had received a special commission to throw stones all around it. Its writers are found frequently making this junction of names— the Fox-Y ogo\-Macandrew Ministry,—thereby insinuating what they dare not state, and, as if they themselves were without sin, stooping to the meanness of dragging up ancient and irrelevant errors of others in order to found thereon the bases of new calumnies against the present Government.

The latest, and perhaps the worst of these chronic calumnies, is the following, which appeared in the Examiner of the 11 tb instant:—

" ]S To one ever accused our Colonial Treasurer of failing to have an eye to the main chance, and the occurrences of the | as I; sessbn of the Assembly have induced no chan.ee of opinion on this subject. Among the acts of the session was one brought forward by Mr. Vogel, to provide for the purchase of Government annuities, and for which the Colonial Treasurer received great credit. The net is to be worked by a Commissioner, to he appointed for life, and whose remuneration is fixed by the net (a most unusual circumstance) at £800 a-year. Mr. Vogel has undertaken to perform tho duties of this oflice gratuitously bo long us he remains Colonial Treasurer, but of course this means that so soon as he ceases to be Colonial Treasurer he will become Commissioner of Annuities, with £SOO a-year for the rest of his days, whether the business of the department be much or little. The story goes, but. -we cannot vouch for its truth, that Mr. Vogel, who had a lucrative engagement in Auckland, on the Southern Cross, made \hu little arrangement a stipulation with his colleagues on consenting to take office. Mr. Vogel is very likely the be3t man in the Colony for the appointment, and no one would grudge it him, and an adequate salary. But managed as the matter has been, with £800 a year settled on the oflice, it looks vastly like a job, which always gives offence, and particularly when coming from a professedly economyloving Government, which experience generally proves, means one that will be extravagant."

This story, which is now going the rounds of the opposition press, although stated with all the circumstantial detail of well ascertained fact, is a mere fiction, entirely without foundation. We have made special enquiry on the subject, and have unquestionable authority for stating that not or\\c has Mr. Vogel not heen appointed to the office referred to, hut nothing has ever heen said hy Ministers about his receiving such an appointment, nor has the subject heen once mooted.

"When the publication of such an erroneous and unjust statement as this is coupled with the, many instances of rancorous feeling towards Ministers, —a feeling which some think evinces a desire to halt at no means, however unfair and incorrect, in order to injure and vilify the present Government, —it will readily be conceded, apart from party considerations, that we aided the cause of truth and fair play by warning the people and the press of New Zealand as to the nature of the charges which may be expected to emanate from a certain circle of politicians in Nelson, and the organ they command. The mention of such an unjust charge, and its permitted uncontradicted circulation, is not political opposition, it is party baseness ; all the worse when it is applied personally to one man, against whom have been directed for months all the shafts of mean inuendo without one single direct charge being brought and verified. These things in the end bring their own reward.