Wellington Independent TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3123, 14 February 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1871.

We are unwilling to add even a leatherweight to the donkey's back of the writer in the " Evening Post" about Government patronage — galled as his back already is with a load of moi tified vanity, and receiving, we fancy, at present more kicks than pennies — but the interests of truth require us shortly to refer to his last article on a subject out of which he finds that he has not made his anticipated capital. In the Chinese war, their most formidable batteries turned out to be painted wooden guns, and the same Celestial artifice pervades the bristling columns of our contemporary. A general indefinite charge against the Government of extravagant and improper patronage had been set floating about, and the " Evening Post" had been conspicuous in the exercise of malicious industry in its propagation. We asked for particulars and proofs, and we were favored with a rechauffe of misstatements, exaggerations, spiteful malice, et id genus omne, culled out of the lucubrations of "Our own correspondent" of Opposition papers for the last twelve months, and more resembling the mean scribbles of a disappointed and snobbish ex-clerk than the conscientious delivery of a patriot. We have taken the trouble to ascer-

tain the facts of the case in each alleged "instance, however petty it may have been, and pettiness was the rule, and our readers are well able to judge, whether we have not fully met and dis proved each charge of excessive and improper patronage. Our contemporary, alter bis kind, wriggles, shuffles, and equivocates. We quoted, as an illustration that a Minister occasionally draws salary without a portfolio, the case of Major Richardson ; we might also have adduced the case of Mr "Weld. The fact that such a Minister does work, though not departmentally, for bis salary, we willingly admit, and is the very basis of our argument. Pennya liners in the " Evening Post" may think that work consists in sitting down at a desk for a certain time, in collecting the scandal of the day, and in reproducing it into so much linear measurement of copy ; but to such we venture to hint that there is undemonstrative and mental work, and that this work requires talent which can scarcely be remunerated, as in tbe other case, by the rule of thumb. We . are told tbat we have not denied that the Government reduced Captain Fox from motives of personal animosity. The charge is utterly absurd and .untrue, and rests merely on the ipse dixit, rather a rotten foundation, of the " Evening Post." We showed that the Government made a saving by the sale of the St Kilda, and that part of that saving consisted in the cessation of the salary of the commander. We will not tire our readers by referring in detail to mere general contradictions of authentic statements made by ourselves, but as a samplo of the untruth and evasion which characterise tbe article in question, we will, out of that well-stocked repertory, take indiscriminately two instances : — Our contemporary says that we dare not say that the present Government abolished the office of TJnder-Secreiary with £000 a year, but tbat Colonel Haultain did away with that office. "What we wanted to show was that the present Government saved the public funds. What are the facts of the case ? The late Government, by order of the House abolished the office, and then during tbe recess till a month from the session paid a salary of £500 a year to an Acting Under Secretary. The present' Government have only paid, either during the session or the recess, at the rate of £100 for tbe performance of those duties. So much for the untruth, now for the evasion. We stated that by the appointment of Mr Locke — a proof quoted by our contemporary, of extravagance — tbe Government effected a saving of £350 a year. Our contemporary's rejoinder is a question whether Mr Locke has been paid for some surveys which he made as a private individual, before he entered the public service. This is a style of controversy, which respect for our readers and ourselves renders us unable to continue.