3

H.—22

11. Let me state the facts. Upon my return to the colony from Victoria in December last, I received, at Eiversdale, a telegram from a constituent asking me as Commissioner of Customs to stay proceedings in a prosecution which the telegram informed me had been instituted against Gilmer, a Wellington brewer. By telegram I asked Mr. McKellar, Secretary of Customs, to stay proceedings until my arrival at Wellington, I being then under the impression that only one brewery was being proceeded against. The Hon. Mr. Hislop, who was acting for me, wired that he thought the proceedings should go on; and I answered by telegraph, " Very well; let prosecution proceed." Immediately upon arrival in Wellington I saw Mr. H. D. Bell, Crown Solicitor, and asked him to explain the nature of the case. He then informed me, and I learned for the first time, that it was proposed to prosecute several breweries, which he named; but he said the case against Staples's brewery was only a small one, and he proposed not to go on with it. I instructed him then that if there were to be prosecutions they must be general and impartial, and that there must be no exceptions—the great and the small were to be prosecuted alike. In my own office on the same day (14th December) I gave the same direction to Mr. McKellar. Subsequently, as the result of a further conversation with Mr. Bell, he, by letter, instructed the Collector to take two cases as test-cases —Hamilton's and Edmonds' —these being the only cases in which informations had then been laid. I minuted my agreement with that direction upon the letter. The test-cases were tediously protracted before the Court. Hamilton's case occupied over two months. It resulted in conviction. The Edmonds case, which followed, resulted in dismissal. There was thus strong evidence of the uncertainty of the law. However, the test-cases being disposed of, the next point was how to deal with the Junction Brewery case, this being the only remaining case in which it was proposed by the Customs officers to institute proceedings. In the meantime, Mr. Gilmer, managing director of the Junction Brewery Company, had addressed a letter to the Commissioner of Customs, in which he placed himself unreservedly in the hands of the Commissioner, and offered to pay any penalty the Commissioner might impose, in addition to the payment of any amount which the Customs officials might,find.to be due for deficient duty. In the exercise of my powers as Commissioner I could have dealt with the case out of hand on my own responsibility, but" I preferred not to deal with it myself. I asked the Customs officials in writing to state what had been the custom of the department in dealing with breweries where a deficiency of duty was discovered, and I was informed in writing that it had been the custom to require that the deficient duty should be made good by destroying stamps to the amount of the deficiency. So recently as the 21st September last, seventeen days subsequent to the date of the first information laid against the Junction Brewery, the Customs Department had accepted from Staples and Co. the sum of £49 ss. 6d. as payment for deficient duty on seventy-three hogsheads of beer not entered in the Customs book kept by them. No prosecution was instituted in that case, nor was the Commissioner of Customs consulted upon the matter in any way. Still, I thought it due to my colleagues that I should not act entirely upon my own responsibility in deciding upon the Junction case. I was anxiously awaiting the return of the Premier from Gisborne, where he was engaged upon the Te Kooti affair, to discuss the matter with him; and, when I found that he had crossed from Napier to Wanganui, instead of returning to Wellington, I convened a meeting of Cabinet specially to discuss the question. This was on the 4th March. It was of consequence that the matter should be considered on that day, because otherwise the period within which an information for one of the offences could be laid would expire by effluxion of time. I did not, however, regard that as a matter of very great seriousness, as I had officially in my possession Mr. Gilmer's letter indemnifying the Government, and undertaking to pay a penalty as great as any which a Magistrate could compel him to pay, even if a conviction were obtained : and I especially wish to point out that there is on the papers connected with the case a recommendation from Mr. Glasgow, Collector of Customs, to this effect: that, looking at the uncertainty of the law involved in Hamilton's conviction and Edmonds's dismissal, it was advisable that the Commissioner should deal with the case by fining the Junction Company £100 for the offence, and £100 for the deficient duty, making £200 in all. 12. I wished to convene the Cabinet meeting for an early hour in the day ; but at the special request of the Hon. Mr. Fergus, who urged that he had to settle some pressing private business with his partner, Mr. Blair, who was leaving by the steamer for the South, the meeting was fixed for half-past two. At that hour I stated the case to Cabinet, the members present being the Hon. Mr. Hislop, the Hon. Mr. Eichardson, the Hon. Mr. Fergus, and myself. It was then very fully discussed ; and at the suggestion of the Hon. Mr. Hislop the veryjunusual, and to me discourteous, course of sending for a subordinate officer of my department, to cross-examine him on the facts as I had placed them before the Cabinet, was adopted. Mr. Glasgow was called into the Cabinetroom, and subjected to an extremely wearying and tedious cross-examination by the Hon. Mr. Hislop, which carried the time to over ten minutes past four o'clock, when it appeared to be the general opinion of the Cabinet members present that an information should be laid. I did not dissent from that course ; but the prolonged cross-examination of Mr. Glasgow had made it impossible to lay an information on that day, as, when I sent Mr. Smith, my Private Secretary, to the Police Court to see whether the informations could be laid that afternoon, he returned with the information that it was too late, as the office of the Clerk of the Court closed at four o'clock. These two points—the Hon. Mr. Fergus delaying the time of meeting of Cabinet, and my sending hurriedly to see whether the information could be laid that afternoon —can be absolutely established if necessary. But it is important to remember that all the other cases against the same defendants are now before the Court, the Cabinet having decided that they should go on, and I myself having given the written instruction to proceed with them. Thus I have acquiesced in all the Cabinet has done in these cases. 13. Then, as to the Hamilton case, one of the test-cases already alluded to : During the whole course of the proceedings I made no inquiry about the case, nor did I deal with it at any stage. At its conclusion, and in reporting upon the petition for mitigation of penalty, Mr. Glasgow recom-