REPORT OE THE PRIVILEGES COMMITTEE.

17

H.—No. 7.

Mr. Tribe.

10th Oct., 1872.

178. You are quite certain that, between Monday evening and the Tuesday evening, he did not say anything to you of that sort ?—I cannot be quite certain. lam pretty sure I did not see him on the Monday evening. I may have been with him on the Tuesday; I may have been with him all day on Tuesday. 179. The Hon. Mr. Gillies.] Did Mr. Harrison tell you about this proposal which he had from Mr. Holt previous to his having communicated with the Speaker? —I think he did. 180. Did he tell you of it previous to his having communicated it to the Speaker—before the sending of his letter to the Speaker ? —I think he did. lam not very confident upon that point. 181. Mr. Rolleston.] When Mr. Harrison told you of the course he intended to take of meeting the Speaker, did you express any opinion upon that course ? —Yes; I advised him not to do so ; I was averse to his doing so. 182. Did you intimate to Mr. Harrison that any overtures or proposals of any character had been made to you by Mr. Brogden ?—I did not intimate that any proposal having a political bearing had been made by Mr. Brogden, or any one connected with the firm. 183. Can you state what you did inform Mr. Harrison of?— Yes ; I cannot be sure of the date, but I think it was Monday morning that I saw Mr. Henderson at his own house. We had some conversation about negotiations that I had been trying to manage for Mr. Brogden, for the attainment of water concessions in Westland, and Mr. Henderson asked me what I would charge for the services I had rendered. I replied that I had not thought of making any charge; that my whole and sole object was to get a race made for the benefit of the district. Mr. Henderson replied, " You have had a vast deal of trouble, and it is not our custom to accept gratuitous services, and I think it right to make you a present of £100." Mr. Henderson is chief engineer to Mr. Brogden. 184. Were you asked to name a sum yourself as remuneration ?—Mr. Henderson pressed me to name a sum, and I said, "If you press it upon me I cannot well refuse ; will £50 be too much ? " It was after that he said it was too little ; he would make me a present of £100. I had been acting for Mr. Brogden in this matter of applications for water race, and in the matter of railway concessions, since last Session ; I have been corresponding with him. 185. Did you receive the sum ? —No; I have received no money from him for my services. 186. When Mr. Harrison told you of the view he took of the Messrs. Brogden's proposals from Mr. Holt, did you intimate to him that you took the same view of the proposals that had been made to you? —No. 187. You did not intimate that you considered that they were of the same character as those to yourself ?—No; I cannot recollect what did pass between us. I probably said something to this effect: that if the £100 offered had anything to do with influencing my political action, that I should decline it. 188. Sir J. C. Wilson.] You did not understand that it was to influence your political action. You had been working for a year in trying to get concessions for water races, and concessions for railways. Did you consider, until you heard that tale from Mr. Harrison, that that £100 was offered for the purpose of exercising an improper influence over you? —I did not. 189. Mr. Parker.] Do you now consider that it was offered in an improper manner ? —I do not. 190. Sir J. C Wilson.] You say that you did not think so, and that you do not think so now. Had you thought so, would you not have resented it on the spot? Would you not have said, "I am not the man that you can deal with in this way ?"—lf it had been put very obviously, I should have done so certainly. 191. Mr. Rolleston.] Did you, at the time of the conversation with Mr. Harrison, intimate that Mr. Brogden's proposals then, in your mind, bore that aspect? —I might have gone so far as to say possibly there might have been some ulterior object in the offer, but I never thought so. 192. Did you make use of any such expression, as that some view of the kind presented itself to your mind ? —I do not think so. 193. Mr. Fox.] At the time when Mr. Henderson made this offer to you, were those negotiations complete ? Had they been brought to a final conclusion ?—No ; they are not yet. 194. Had the negotiations arrived at any stage which made the offer of remuneration particularly appropriate ?—I cannot say that they had. 195. Would you have felt that Mr. Brogden was not sufficiently prompt in recognizing your services if he had allowed the offer of remuneration to stand over until the end of the Session ? —I should not. 196. The Hon. Mr. Gillies.] When Mr. Harrison first informed you of the offers that had been made to him by Mr. Holt, did he inform you whether he had consulted any one else before he consulted you ? —Yes, he did. 197. Whom did he say he had consulted ?—I do not know whether it is right to answer that question. 198. The Chairman/] It is your duty to answer the question. Witness.] Mr. Vogel. 199. The Hon. Mr. Gillies.] Did he state to you his opinion on the subject ?—My impression is that it was on Mr. Vogel's advice that he went to the Speaker. 200. Did he state to you what Mr. Vogel's opinion on the subject was ?—I think he said Mr. Vogel, stated that he ought to consult the Speaker on the matter. 201. Is that all ? —That is all that I can recollect. 202. Did he not state to you what Mr. Vogel's own opinion upon the subject of the offer was ? — I do not think he did. 203. At this first interview that you had with Mr. Harrison—the first time he told you about this affair with Mr. Holt, are you quite clear that at that time he had already consulted Mr. Vogel, and intended to consult the Speaker? —No, lam not clear upon that point. I have rather an impression that I saw Mr. Harrison in the afternoon before he saw Mr. Vogel. 204. In the afternoon of Tuesday ?—I think so. 5