The Wanganui Chronicle. AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." TUESDAY, JULY 22,1890.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 11696, 22 July 1890, Page 2

The Wanganui Chronicle. AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." TUESDAY, JULY 22, 1890.

The Government have been blamed, both inside and outside the House, for assisting the Taranaki Harbonr Board, and so preventing that body for making default in the payment of its interest at a. time when, if such default had occurred, it might bave seriously prejudiced, in the London market, the Government's loan operations. In the House, Mr Seddon and other leading Oppositionists have unsparingly denounced the action of the Government, while a number of representative journals in the colony, putting aside party considerations, have similarly expressed their disapprobation of the course taken. It now appears, however, that the advance so many condemn, and which so few are found ready to justifywas really sanctioned by the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Representatives last sossion. , This Committee, be it remembered, Has specially to do with money operations, and is generally composed of the best financial experts and authorities from both sides of the House. It usually includes all exColonial Treasurers and such other members'as, have given special attention to financial questions. It was to this Committee that the Premier and Colonial Treasurer, Sir Harry Atkinson, taade known the fact that, left to their own resources, the Taranaki Harbour Board must almost certainly make default in the payment of their interest when next it fell due, and that if so the colony would suffer in its loan operations. Tinder the peculiar circumstances of the case, the Premier asked for advice as to what the Government should do. Obviously, he could not bring the matter before the House, because publicity would simply hare precipitated and assured the misfortune that he feared, and have prevented the possibility of any remedy being applied. Neither did he— nor apparently did any member of. the Public 1 Accounts Committee — think it doairable 1 that the records of the Committee should contain any allusion, to the matter, and therefore no resolution was passed or invited. What the Premier actually > asked was, that if the Committee approved of an advance being made to the , Taranaki Harbour Board under the circumstances, they should signify their assent by not interposing. any objection i to that course. Whereupon two promin- . ent Opposition leaders— presumably high • authorities in matters of finance — an exj banker and Minister, in the person of Mr ' Larnach, and an ex-Treasurer in the ■ person of Mr Ballance — rose and moved • what is known as "previous .question," ■" the purpose of which in Parliamentary practice ia to prevent any resolution 1 being arrived at and recorded. That was exactly what the- Premier desired, if the i Committee approved of assistance being ottered to Taranaki. So. then, the Premier, the leader of the Opposition, and the financial experts of the House are equally responsible for the course taken - by the Government. Mr Ballance, in- , deed, writhing under the withering sar- ( casm of some members of his own party, felt impelled to publicly declare in the House, when the question was under discussion, that perhaps hehad done wrong, but he had done it in the interests of the ' colony. Open confession is not to be ridiculed : but its value must bo largely ' discounted when the speaker is under pressure to speak, and -where the whole truth is known to so many who might supplement anything kept back. What we do not at all like is this— that during the recess certain newspapers of the colony woro supplied with information as to the fact of an advance having been made to tho Taranaki Harbour Board,

and the fact was made the ground of frequent and bitter attacks upon the Government.' Now, who supplied this information ? Not, surely, the members of. the Taranaki Board. It must have been some member or members of the Public Accounts* Committee — and 'it is not likely that Ministerialists would go out of their way to furnish tho newspapers with material wherewith to attack the Government. It must, therefore, have been Opposition members who blabbed. Whoever told the story appears to have carefully kept back the sharo in the transaction of the Public Accounts Committee. We remember one or two sultry articles that our contemporary, the Advocate, had upon the subject, in which condemnation was poured upon tho head of the Government — but we do not remember anything boing said about the share of Mr Ballance or Mr Larnach, or the other members of the Public Accounts Committee in the transaction. Neither do we remember that Mr Ballance, although living, and having control of a journal, in the district from which such attacks proceeded, ever uttered or published a word by way of defending the Government, or by lotting the public know that he was equally responsible with Ministers for what had been done. Silence under such circumstances does not commend itself to us as indicating the highest sense of honour.