The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 3019, 23 October 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1872.

It is a good rule of life not only to do no evil but to avoid the appearance of evil. No matter what a man’s position, whether high or low, these healthy maxims should be observed. Many a man whose life has been a course of uprightness and morality has had his fortune blasted, because through some mischance, he has become an object of suspicion that no explanation he could give could wipe away. Such people are to be sincerely pitied, for they suffer through no act of their own. But it is verv different when men deliberately place themselves in situations calculated to excite distrust. Histoi y supplies too many examples of abuse of office to permit the belief that those who have opportunity will invariably sacrifice private interest to public duty ; and, therefore, the utmost care and circumspection are requisite on the part of Governments, not to allow to their agents even the semblance of exerting undue influence in any direction by which their own private interests may be advanced through the special advantages of their official position. When the supposed rich quartz reefs in Nelson were discovered, there could be no objection to a person connected with the land department becoming a purchaser of land like other people : the objection very righteously raised was, that lie used the special information supplied to the Government to secure his own interest to the possible detriment of some person who, in strict justice, as the discoverer or from other circumstances, might have a prior or equal churn. There can bo no objection to a contractor sitting in Parliament, so long as lie is not a contractor for works undertaken by the Government. But when he undertakes a contract, on the tcrrnsaml payment of which he is called upon to legislate, the question assumes a very different shape. As a contractor he is a servant ; as a legislator lie is master, and long ex perienco has shown that it will not do to allow a man, however honest, to be both employer and employed, the receiver and payer of wages out of the public fund for the same work. Very properly, therefore, for these as well as additional reasons, contractors for work under Government are excluded from occupying seats in Parliament. Possibly some may think it hard that Dr Fuathkrstox and Mr Morrison should lie placed under such restraints as the Ministry propose to subject them to in regard to the directorship of the new Bank. We ically do not see that their case is an exception to the rule. Abstractedly there can be no objection to both gentlemen investing their uiouey iu banking

shaves; and if the Bank were not in any way connected with the Colony, they might safely allow their names to be placed on the Directory. But the Bank in which their names appear as directors, is to be, or already is, largely connected with the Colony, and consequently a rival to other establishments having equal claim to the prestige of official influence, lb is quite possible that the action of Dr Featherston and Mr Morrison in the Directory may be merely nominal—that, in fact, it may be confined to the placing of their names on the Directory. But even that is objectionable, when it is designed to obtain an advantage through such a ruse, even if it be merely to induce confidence in investors at Horne that the Bank can command a.payiug business. We consider it, to say the least of it, a mistake on the part of the Agent-General that he ought not to have fallen into, and which, should he have the folly to refuse to retract, will stamp him as unfit for the position. It is curious to note who those arc in the House of Representatives that uphold Dr I RATH erston in his mistake. First we have Mr Dillon Bell, who appears to be quite indignant at the thought of a Government exercising any control over such a man as Dr Featherston.

His argument is a curious specimen of muddle. First, the Doctor Avill not submit to bo dictated to—that is understandable. Second, if the Government interferes to prevent undue influence in favor of one Bank, people at Home are to conclude it is dictated to in the sweating-room of another. Mr Bell 8 logic is often curious, but in this instance ho has called in the assistance of the spirit of prophecy : together, such argument should be irresistible —at any rate, in convincing of its worthlessness. Mr Stafford and Mr Fmherbert take higher ground. They maintain that Dr Featherston and Mr Morrison have done perfectly right. This is strictly in accordance Avith Avhat might be expected from them, but it is most damaging testimony to the Agent-General’s fitness for his position. One avouUl really imagine that these gentlemen had reason to complain of existing banking establishments by their eagerness to introduce another influential one under official patronage. Their mode of defence is, however, intimately connected with the principles laid doAvn by Mr Stafford of completing his arrangements for bidding New Zealand tarcAvell, and being utterly indifferent as to what becomes of it afterwards. He defends Dr Featherston in a course dictated by the same spirit, instead of laving down the principle that the servants of a Colony are bound to act in accordance Avith, and not in opposition to, the regulations of the Government that pays them : and one of those regulations is that there shall lie no undue use of official position for private gain.