The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News. THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1875.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1675, 1 July 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News.

THURSDAY, JULY 1, 1875.

Tw th. c»ubb that lacks assi.tance, &r tha future in the distance Art th» nod that we can da.

Ws yesterday published the letter of the Paymaster-General transmitting the imponnded capitation money to the Wellington Provincial Treasury. It was received by us per telegram as we went to press, and want of time precluded any comment. It is, indeed, a remarkable letter, and well worthy of preservation. As an effort to put a good face on a bad business it is ingenious if not particularly successful. It is not so much an explanation of the payment of the money as an apology for its former retention. The writer saya he has the " honor by direction of the Colonial Treasurer "—under which thimble does the pea rest now ?—" to explain that this payment has been withheld until now in a hope that the Treasury might be enabled to adjust the charge against the province in respect of interest payable," etc. This is how it was then. Three weeks ago, the same gentleman telegraphed: " The charge for interest on cost of Auckland railways, chargeable against capitation, will absorb the whole sum due ;" and only ten days ago Dr Pollen telegraphed that the "recovery of the amount due by the province was made in the rernlar course of business and as is done in the case of monies due by other provinces." The Paymaster-General explains that it was only xoitTiheld in tke hope of adjusting 'accounts, and the Colonial Secretary says the money was impounded "in the regular course of business." Both of these statements cannot be true, and either the Colonal Secretary or ;he Paymaster-General is fibbing. We go farther, and say that both at<j doing so ; and it is exceedingly disgraceful to New Zealand that it is so. Dr. Pollen must have known well that this illegal action was not " in the. regular course of business," and that auch a thing had never been done , by him 6*. by any other member of the Ministry before. It was the very first case, under the Public Works policy, of interest for a partially constructed railway being charged against any province, and the very first case of capitation allowance having been stopped jw transitu for- such a purpose. It was ' ~r'~**refore in the " regular course of ■"\ seeing it was the attempted 4 a new and, as is proved by : unwarrantable and illegal paymaster, acting as he actions, palpably does \on his own motion* *<ttk term;' but acting

under compulsion' lie is, of course, not morally accountable. His statement is tantamount to saying that they did not mean to keep the money. In fact, like a man caught with, his hand in another's pocket declaring— "Upon my honor I didn't mean it-it was only a lark." The " ambiguity of the law" and the " difficulty of reconciling the views of the Commissioners of Audit, and of the Treasury on the several points involved," were, forsooth, the moving causes that induced the Government to relax its grasp of the plunder. We do not know that we have read of a more miserable shuffle Ito get out of a . bad position on the part of any one caught ,/lagrtinte delieto. The real fact is that Dr Pollen found he could not stick to the plunder. Sir George G rfey i n Auckland and Mr Fiteherbert i a Wellington had severally and separately taken legal opinion, and had agreed to joint action to compel payment; and now tne General Go . vernment resort to the miserable' subterfuge of instructing an unfortunate civil servant, whose bread and butter are dependant on his doing what he is told, to say that they did not mean to keep the money. If this is the sort of blundering and shuffl.ng to which the country and the Assembly are to be treated by the Government m the absence of the Brains of the Ministry, the end cannot be very far G tf