POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE.

Evening Star, Issue 3193, 15 May 1873, Page 3

POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE.

MR CURTIS AND MR SHEPHARD,

The con 03pondenco relating to the resignation of Mr J. Shephard of his office as Provincial Treasurer, has beon laid before the Nelson Provincial Council. Mr Shephard resigned on November 28, and immediately on receiving the le tor conveying the resignation, Mr Curtis ashed to be favored with the reasons which induced the former “ to take so so. iden and unexpected a step.” Mr Shephard replied that ho had been charged in an editorial in the Nelson Examiner with acting towards Mr Curtis with dishonor, and inferentially ’so to his constituents, and proceeded to say

Had this been the first attack of the same character in the Examiner , I might have felt disposed to content myself with a contradiction ; but a letter in the issue of 12th October, “From our own correspondent,” makes similar charges, concluding with a statement that ten minutes before the division I had promised to vote with Mr Stafford. This you were good enough to tell me you had always declared was untrue, and as my friends in the Waimea were satisfied with my denial, there the question would have rested. Now the ground is changed; and it is asserted that I had expressed my intention to members of the .House to vote from the base motives falsely attributed to mo. These repeated statements are entirely and equally baseless; for, however offensive my course might be to some persons, I have strictly adhered to my declaration to you and many others, “that, utterly regardless of personal considerations, I should vote in the way that appeared to me best calculated to promote the interests of the Colony.” It is alleged, on the contrary, that to benefit myself and do you an injury I prostituted my vote. You will pardon me for saying tliat if you believed these charges, it was your duty to the Province to have at once exorcised the power vested in yon by the Executive Act and dismissed me, on the ground that no dishonorable man could safely be entrusted with public money. On the other hand, if you believe I was slandered, I venture with all deference to suggest that it would not have been exceeding the ordinary feeling of loyalty to a colleague whose official relations wore in question, to have volunteered aid and evidence in support of my reputation. The absurdity of the whole attack will be manifest when it is publicly known, as well as I believe it is in the Executive Council, that I am quite indifferent to an office which 1 have only continued to hold from the hope of being able to advance the interests of tiro Province more than 1 could as a private member of the Provincial Council, acting probably in opposition to the Government. So I resigned. Mr Curtis replied to this that he had only to deal with the acts ami not the motives of public men, and had invariably declined to canvass, or in any way to take into account the motive* by which they might or might not have been actuated. He saw nothing in Mr Shephard’s ac’ion in tho Assembly, or because newspaper articles bad been written, that should cause him to resign his Provincial office, and went on to say ; I entirely confirm your denial of the statement to me, or, as far as I am aware, to any one else, within ten minutes of the division or at any other time, that you would voti with the Stafford Government, although I was to the last minute under the impression that it was your intention to do so ; ami I can readily believe, although I have no distinct recollection of the fact, that you told me, and I have no doubt others, that your vote would be given irrespective of considerations of personal interest. It is, perhaps, also only fair to you that I should here state the reasons you gave me, without inquiry on rny part, for the vote which has given occasion for so much comment, two or three days after it was given, namely, that you found a report was current in tlio House to the effect that your vote had been bought by the Stafford Government, that members were offering bets that it would be given accordingly, and that you tberefoic felt bound to give youi

vote on the other side in order to prove th« 4 utter falseness of the imputation. You added that yon thought I should have done the same in the circumstances; to which I replied that I should not have been influenced by any such considerations, but should have treated the report with indifference. Mr Shephard replied, recalling- to Mr Curtis’s recollection the circumstance that before the commencement of the second oou versation, he prefaced the expression of his indignation about the insulting bets by saying, “Had no other sufficient reason existed.” Mr Curtis answered—“l cannot remember that you used the words “ had no other sufficient reason existed,” or any other words of similar purport; on the contrary, my recollection is, most distinctly, that yon conveyed to mo the impression that bad it not been for a report that your vote had been bought by the Stafford Government, and the offer of bets that it would be given accordingly, your vote would Lave boon given in support of that Government.” The correspondence closes with the following note from Mr Shephard : I can only again repeat distinctly and decidedly that the words were used, and lament the impossibility of procuring corroborative testimony. When the Provincial Council meets, it will be seen that the changes I am prepared to advocate, being in part opposed to the declared opinions of my colleagues, I could not discuss them in the Executive Council with that degree of freedom that I desire to have, neither did I believe there was any probability that they could have boon accepted there.