OPPOSITION FACTS?

Evening Star, Issue 2843, 30 March 1872, Page 2

OPPOSITION FACTS?

(Lyttelton Times.) In addressing bis constituents at Nelson, a week or two ago, iMr A. S. Collins endea* vored to make them believe that the tint instalment of the loan, raised by the Colo* nial Treasurer in London, had been all spent. This remarkable statement was first set afloat by Mr Sewell, who went into hot and violent opposition to the Government a day or two after they found it necessary to request that be would withdraw from the Cabinet. The real facts have just come to light. The New Zealand Gazette, published on Saturday, March —, contains a return showing the whole expenditure and liabilir ties on public works aud immigration up to December 31, 1871—some two months later than the date on which Mr Sewell declared the money had been all spent—and it is not toe much to say that the figures are eminently satisfactory. The return shows that the actual expenditure had been 1.321,833, and the liabilities incurred L30G,948, making a total of L 628,781. We arc notin possession of the fuil details, but the above disposes satisfactorily of the absurd canard which has been freely circulated on the authority of an exMinister. Mr Sewell wag never very scrupulous when it was his cue, or his wish, to damage an opponent. But for his own sake, if for nothing else, we should expect him to be accurate when figures are concerned; or, it he has no means of ascertaining the actual truth, to be guarded in his language. The suggestio falsi is as bad in its way as the tuppressi overt, if not worse, though a certain class of politicians seem to think that both may be indulged in with impunity and without discredit.