Tyranny

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 4, 10 January 1884, Page 2

Tyranny

«. Mr Connolly, the Minister of Justice, has caased a circular to he sent to all Resident Magistrates, Wardens, •e---eeivers of Gold Revenue, Clerks of District, -Resident Magistrates, or Wardens i ourts, forbidding them holding any shares in any go d or other mining company, and informing those officers who may be shareholders that they will be allowed a reasonable time to part with their interests in order that they may not be ; sacrificed. This looks very like interfering with the liberty of the subject, which under the. free institutions we enjoy is not- likely to be tolerated by a free people. .We have no doubt that' Mr . ConOll. believes he 'has a perfect right • to do this thing, but we also believe he is : utterly ignorant of what he is trying to . do. If he hopes to prevent an unscrupulous gold-field officer from speculating in

mines, and taking advantage of his official position by using the information there gained for his own profit, he is very much mistaken, and betrays a childlike simplicity very becoming in an inf.int of tender years, but hardly so in a Minister of Justice who ought to know something about the ways of this wicked world. We suppose the next thing we shall hear of will be an order to all (.overnment officials to invest their savings (if any) in the shares of a certain favored money institution or in Government debentures or other securities declared or approved only by the Minister.