THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 892, 11 August 1910, Page 4

THE PUBLIC SERVICE.

QUESTION OF CHURCH INFLUENCE., ■-.- Discussing tho. appointment of Mr,. 7 Dinnie, ex-Commissioner of Police, to tho ; chairmanship of a Native Land 'Board, Mr.'T. E. Taylor, M.P. for Christchurch North,- remarked in the House of Repr©- ' sentatives last, night' that :what was done ■■■ : in that -matter had been done openly. .It could not be said' that there was any-:. .'.■■ 'thing in the nature of "Tamnianyism" in conneotion with-the appointment.. His .■.-.■:;: own opinion was that it was a very feeble appointment. He would like, to remind the House. that a* very powerful deputation waited on the .Government before Mr. Dinnie was dealt .'with, as the result of : the commission,: and urged that., ho should'be Tetained, .even when the comriiissioner (Mr. Bishop) had declared that Mr. Dinnie's administration had been very faulty, and when he challenged Mr. Dinnie's, capacity as an t administrator. -,: The deputation consisted -of certain prominent men-, in connection with the Presbyterian' Church,, and they pressed the. ' "..' .Government riot to dismiss Mr.. Dinnie, Personally, he 'had : always' welcomed .-tho; advent of .the'.Christian Church, into poli- . ' tics', so long-as'they came for ethical pur- ; . ; ' poses, but no:seotion of the Church had ' any right \to -g<u to. the Ministry of the . . day and; beg that a.public servant should ;•"■'.,■ be retained in the public service who had.been'guilty of'incapacity..: If it.had' . happened; that the deputation had gono from the Roman Catholic Church, there would have been- such a howl from the Orangemen that it would have been heard from, end to'end of the Dominion. There cculd be no doubt also, that • the Prims Minister would have been. charged with having been-influenced by the people of ''.. his own church.-•' But it so happened, that it was the dissenting church that ,«■'■ had come into politics in this way—they '.■..'".■' were trying to use their influence in-'»:"''■. iV ' Way that they had no right to do. .