THE PAYMENT TO MR E M. SMITH.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11728, 1 December 1905, Page 4

THE PAYMENT TO MR E M. SMITH.

To bolster up its contemptible allegation that the Public Revenues Act is a disgraceful and discreditable statute, and to strengthen its shameful insinuation that it enables the Government to make corrupt payments to its own. followers, the Chronicle in the article alluded to above, cites as an argument the case, of > Mr E. M. Smith, the member for New Plymouth. Our contemporary says : "In, the session of 1902 the Government put a vote of £l±4i on the Estimates .to recoup Mr E. M. Smith, one of their most obsequious supporters, the amount deducted from his honorarium on account of his absence in England in the interests of a private speculation. Such a vote was in direct breach of the Payment of Members Act, but it was carried, and owing to this section the Auditor-General was unable to stop it." Now, what are the facts of the case? Mr Smith's absence in England was upon, matters more in the interests of the colony than his own, and had he succeeded in his quest, he would have added_hundreds of thousands to the prosperity of the colony. The Chronicle might also have told its readers: That for twenty-five years Mr Smith has laboured in smelting, testing, and proving the magnificence of the mineral resources of New Zealand, while anyone who has inspected the evidence of that gentleman's life of dishartening toil, and seen the hundreds of examples of his experience and enterprise, from raw ironsand to finest cutlery, steel tools, instruments -andj implements, besides the scores of bye-products, etc., can only wonder how he had the pluck aiid energy to continue upon his discouraging task in. the f&ce of the scepticism and ridicule levelled at him from even his own colleagues. Yes, we know he wont Home, but we, also won-, der that our contemporary did not infer *hat the Government paid his expenses. The Government might honoiitably ha\« done so, for Mr Smith advertised .the colony largely and was utilised as the Government's handy man while there, still at his own expense. And his paternal Government showed "Party" generosity by. fining him the extreme penalty "provided by Statute whilst absent from Parliament. This statement just about eclipses .the Chronicle's largeness of heart. If Mr Smith had succeeded . in r his undertaking New Zealand would have immensely benefited. But, here, we wont discuss the possibilities of success, or mention •' where New Zealand would have stepped in, cause Mr Smith did not succeed, and. so lost all his years of labour and, his. hard earned capital. That is the reward, of pioneering an industry. New Zealand gained much, and the .£144 merely represents the sum which . Parliament, after long discussion, 'decided to deduct from the fines harshly imposed upon him, and wo think it the most just and merciful resolution put upon their records.