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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3124, 15 February 1871, Page 2

Our evening contemporary published on Monday night a paragraph headed " Government Patronage," and consisting for the most part of an extract from the "Nelson Mail." We have uot seen the oiiginal article in the "Mail," which we believe, however, appeared some time in January, but we imagine that the omissions indicated by asterisks in the " Evening Tost," have been made either to throw the various olauses of the indictment into stronger relief, or for the purpose of suppressing a few words which may jointly have been urged in exlenuation of the action complained of. We find, upon enquiry, that before the necessary officers were appoiuted under the Land Transfer Act, the question whether the act intended that the District Land Registrars should be lawyers, and whether the efficiency of the department would be increased by the appointment of lawyers to those offices, was submitted to the AttorneyGeneral. That gentleman gave it as his opinion that not ouly must the legislature be supposed to have intended that lawyers should be appointed, but that the efficient working of the act could not be expected unless lawyers only were appointed as district hind registrars. If the "Laud Trans'er Act" was to be carried out in its integrity, it was necessary that proper officers should be appointed, and it was impossible to ignore the opinion of the Attorney-General, that those officers should be members of the le»al profession. The general rule was, therefore, established that in every case the office of district land registrar should be held by a duly qualified solicitor, and that for reasons of economy and public convenience this office should be combined with that of registrar of deeds. We may here state that the 12th section of the act declares that registrars of deeds, being barristers or solicitors, may be examiners of titles, but the legal qualification is a sine qua non. As Mr Sharp did not possess the requisite legal qualification to hold office under the new act, he received notice that his ser vices as registrar of deeds would be dispensed with. So far, however, I from the Government " discarding

an old tried officer," Mr Sharpe was treated in the most liberal manner ; he was informed at the same time that he would be granted three months' leave of abseuce on full salary from the date on which he would cease to hold office, and that he would also be allowed compensation under the " Civil Service Act," unless he received, during the three months, an appointment of equal value to that of Registrar of Deeds. The office of District Land Registrar and Registrar of Deeds was conferred, not upon " a Mr Feraday, of Christchurch, at a salary of £600 a year," but upon Mr Samuel Kingdon, who has for many years iesided in Nelson, at a salary of £450. We have stated the plain facts of the case, and we leave it to the public to judge, whether the Government could have acted otherwise than they have done, and whether there was any foundation for " the very general expression of indignation" which we are told was manifested at Nelson. The whole paragraph, (wilh the exception of the statement that Mr Sharp had been deprived of jhis appointment) is a tissue ot falsehoods, all the more shameful that the real state of the case could have been easily ascertained. A. short article appeared in tie " Colonist" of the 31st uit., denying the truth of the charges which had been made against the Government, but this our contemporary finds it convenient to overlook, as it would not suit his purpose. The paragraph which we bave been at the pains to refute, is avowedly published by the " Evening Post " to showthat it is not singular in its opinions as io the abuse of patronage by the Government, and it is certainly " a vindication with a vengeance," It is a poor excuse for the deliberate slanderer to urge that others have been guilty of the same crime for which he has been over and over again convicted, and it will not save him from the punishment to which he is justly entitled — the reprobation and contempt of all right-thinking men in the community.