THE PRESS, THE EX-MINISTER OF JUSTICE, AND MR BATHGATE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 45, 7 March 1874, Page 9

THE PRESS, THE EX-MINISTER OF JUSTICE, AND MR BATHGATE.

Wb have in previous issues published extracts showing the spirit of the press regarding the action of Mr Bathgate in his dual capacity, namely, the Hon. John Bathgate, the Minister of Justice, appointing Mr John Bathgate, the candidate for a Government situation, to a District Judgeship and Police Magistrate. The ' Southland News ' says of him :— lt would take us too long to trace the brief but brilliant career of the late Minister of Justice in this place, but we venture to express the hope that some public spirited bookmaker will collect the scattered materials and throw them into readable shape for the benefit of political students. Such a work would go far to prove that certain commonly received opinions are vulgar errors. It would bhow that strong convictions, high principles, consistency, and good faith are mere obstacles to success — that an accommodating disposition and an imperturbable self-complacency are the only requisites.

The ' Southland Times ' expresses its opinion in an article headed " Abuse of office," of Mr Bath gate as follows : — Mr Bathgate's appiontment as Resident Magistrate for Dunedin, in succession to Mr Strode, is certainly not in any respect matter for public congratulation, whatever it may be to the individual immediately concerned. There are politicians everywhere whose sole object is so to shape their course as to serve their own turn, but Mr Bathgate, upon his entrance into political life, some three years since, was not supposed to belong to this class. In the discharge of the duty devolving upon him as Minister of Justice, by the appointment of himself, a mere onlooker is impelled to the conclusion that Mr Bathgate bns ignored many of the essentials for the appointment. We decidedly object to the retirement of a member of the Government into a salaried office on the Civil List, *s well as to the principle of the appointment as highly improper, and tending to the destruction of the spirit of independence in the tenants of the public forming part of the Ministry.