5

H.—9,

orders given upon Mr. Marks's store, nor does any one of aU the witnesses we have examined pretend to have ever seen such a document. Tlie payments wore, as a rule, made monthly. Once or twice there may have been a little delay, owing to a deficiency of cheques or voucher-forms, but we have no reason whatever for believing that the delay in the payments was cither excessive or systematic. No doubt a person who was urgently in want of stores might sometimes have to go to Mr. Marks's to get them. But uutil he received his wages a small quantity would suffice; and upon getting his cheque, for which he had not generally long to wait, he was at liberty to buy in any market he might find available. The money received was in tho shape of cheques, most of which found their way back again to the Government store, and the difficulty arising from want of change was partially, although inadequately, met by drawing several smaller cheques instead of one for the whole amount. At the beginning of the settlement the payments were made in cash, but cheques were substituted at the request of the settlers themselves, who desired to send remittences to their families. At a still later period it appears that the Government refused, when requested, to revert to tho system of cash payments, ou the ground of the greater convenience of cheques, and the risks attendant upon the keeping supplies of cash in so remoie a place. It has been attempted to show that the Eesident Agent set his face against the competition of private stores, but there is no proof of this, and we fear that a better reason for the failure of such stores might be found in the general preference of tho settlers for the credit given at the Government store, a preference partly grounded perhaps on the hope, since so amply realized, that they might never be called upon to pay at all. Any grievance which the settlers might have in this matter arises, in our opinion, from the fact of there being a Government store at all; but the complaint ofthe petition relates only to the time when the Government store had been given up. Wo shall have some further remarks to make upon tho Government store, but under the present heading it is enough to say that, although gangers' certificates of work wore used for the purpose of progress payments, and were honored by the Eesident Agent when pay-day came, such orders were quite unrestricted iv their operation, and not in any way limited to Mr. Marks's store : moreover, there is no evidence of the frequent occurrence of undue delay in the payment of wages. General Remarks on ihe Petition.— The document containing these unproven allegations requires a few more words before it is finally dismissed. Mr. Barff, in a letter to the Chairman of the Commission, dated lGth March, 1879, says that "au overwhelming majority of the persons who complained of their treatment at Jackson's Bay have from time to time left the settlement for other parts of the colony." AYe do not quite know what are the complaints to which this remark refers. It certainly has little force in respect of the petition now under consideration. This document bears thirtysix signatures, and of this number we have taken tho evidence of one-half, that is, of eighteen witnesses. These include all the framers and promoters of the petition ; and of those who have not been examined, almost every one of whom was a foreigner, we believe that hardly any had a clear notion of the statements he was asked to sign. Of those who gave evidence, witness alter witness denied all knowledge of the truth of the allegations, and desired to limit his responsibility to an assertion of his own particular grievance, which was generally not embodied in the petition at all. Every one who signed took it for granted that some one else would be able to prove the statements, and thus this document has been framed and signed, and, after being read in Parliament and published iv the colony, has contributed largely to the appointment and expense of a Commission of Inquiry, and finally has been found upon examination, in every statement which is not sheltered against contradiction by its vagueness, to be substantially untrue. The petition was drafted by Messrs. Murdoch and Docherty, but in its origination and promotion they appear to have been aided by the counsels of Messrs. Clarke, Dwan, and Callery, with perhaps one or two others, all of whom have shown a spirit of much animosity against the Eesident Agent. We thought it only right to mark our sense of tho utterly unprincipled manner iv which this memorial had been set on foot by refusing to allow any expenses to those witnesses who attended from the Haaßt Pass, and whoso names were attached to tho petition. Tlie easy recklessness with which tho petition was drawn and si«ned is quite in keeping with the readiness which some of its promoters showed to withdraw it if Mr. Macfarlane would come to their terms in the allotment of work. It remains to say that, after the conclusion ofthe sittings at Jackson's Bay, Messrs. Michael and Patrick Dwan, and Docherty, for themselves aud Mr. Callery, formally stated to us that they desired to withdrawaltogether from tho charges made in the petition against tho Eesident Agent, and they desired that what they said should bo communicated to him. They also said that at the time when the petition was framed they were assured that tho charges would be proved by; proper evidence, hut that they were now satisfied that they had entirely broken down. We regret that we have been compelled to spend so much timo in tho investigation of the history and character of such a document as this petition, but we trust that the last word has now been said upon the subject. Mr. Barff: Potatoes. —Tho next statement of Mr. Barff's with which we have to deal is one made ou his own authority, and is to the following effect: " That in one case a quantity of damaged potatoes, that could not be sold at auction, were left on the wharf at Hokitika, until they were directed to bo removed by the Inspector of Nuisances. They wero then sold to a person appointed to do tho dirty work, at sixpence a bag, and were sent down to Jackson's Bay, and sold to the settlers at £17 a ton, for seed potatoes." This statement has cost us more time and trouble to investigate than even the petition. With the assistance of Mr. Barff we have examined nearly a score of witnesses on tho subject. We havo obtaiued information in the shape of letters and telegrams from every source that could be suggested; we have followed every clue of which we could catch a glimpse; we have compared dates and seasons, inquired into rumours, searched the columns of newspapers for shipping intelligence, leading articles, and anonymous letters; and have inspected the books and invoices of merchants, and the manifests of ships. To make a thorough analysis of the statements that have been put before us, with the view of