THE EAST COAST ELECTION,

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume IV, Issue 370, 29 March 1876, Page 3

THE EAST COAST ELECTION,

Tho following letter under tho above beading appeared in last Thursday's Evening Star : — (To the Editor of the Star.) Sir, — I am glad you have given the East Coast " Bribery and corruption" case the prominence it deserves in your leading celumns, and I fancy your well-known advocacy of the rights of the just and oppressed, will fee required to bring to light the hidden things of darkness that Jie concealed beneath the film whioh, at present, hides from view the really guilty and "corrupt." You have treated this matter, in a manly, straight-forward way in last night's leader? and it is a great pity that in these matters one is not free to call a spade a spado j but I would correct one impression you seem to endorse, namely, that Major Pitt really has been guilty of making direct money gifts to bribe electors to secure votes for Captain Eead. "Five pounds" (eaoh), "you believe was che figure." Fair, business like and honorable, as suoh a ooureo may well be considered as against tho shuffling pretenoes generally set up, I take this opportunity to publicly deny that such a charge as that instituted in tho Tauranga court can be sus< tamed against Major Pitt. I have many means of knowing this, one of which is an intimate acquaintance with all the circumstances connected with Oapfc. Read's canvass and election. I have not read the- evidence given before the magistrate, but 1 fully agreo with your corres. pondonfc, that the charge was a " paltry" one, and " wholly unsupported by corroborative testimony ;" and, from a public point of view, one can only deplore the useless expense the country and the litigants concerned will be further subjected to in relegating to a superior court a matter which could have been as satisfactorily disposed of in a summary way. There may bo littlo doubt that, according to Major Pitt's explanation, the laboriously tyrannical clauses of the "Regulation of Elections Act" have been unsuspectingly infringed by him, so as to bring his conduct within the pale of such condemnation as it provides j but I utterly scout the idea of either "bribery" or "corruption" forming part of that conduct. Magistrates are but human, and susceptible in a large degree to the influence of local publio opinion ; and I have no doubt in my mind that this fact has oon» tributed somewhat to the Tauranga Bench electing to relieve itself of the responsibility of deciding what amount of "corruption" there is involved in the charges against Maior Pitt. I oannot, however, dismiss a belief that public justice would have been meted' by summary jurisdiction, and am oonfrdentthat the crucifying, chagrined eleotors of Tauranga will have nothing further to rejoice- over than a large bill of costs run up against Captain Read. — Yours, &c, Standard.