The Globe. MONDAY, JULY 22, 1878.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1383, 22 July 1878, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, JULY 22, 1878.

The Lyttelton Times lias at length ventured a defence of its patrons, the Ministry, in connection with the Bay of Islands electoral roll case, and a miserable job it makes of it. The facts as furnished by the correspondent of tho New Zealand Times are published elsewhere, so we need not repeat them at length here. Briefly, they are as follows : ■■ - Twice Mr. John Lnndou contested tho seat for the Bay of Islands, the last occaheing in 1876, when ho was defeated by Mr. Williams. After that election tho legality of Natives holding their lands in common under Crown grant, &c., being entitled to one franchise, was tested, and tho revising officer, Mr. Lawlor, gave it against tho Natives. Tho following year tho registration officer objected to all the Native names on tho roll which ho considered were not entitled to tho franchise, and his objections wore sustained. This year, Mr. Lundon, in anticipation of a dissolution of Parliament sent in, through his agents, some 400 Native claims. Mr. Lundon, it must ho understood, is a supporter of tho Ministry, and those 400 votes will in all probability make his return at tho next election perfectly safe. Tho day before tho Revision Court sat the Registration Officer, Mr. Williams, was requested, by telegram, to resign, and a Captain Baker appointed to take his place. When the Court mot next day Mr, Tolo, another Government supporter, appeared on behalf of the Natives, and made an objection which he considered would ho “ fatal.” “Ho said that all tho objections wore made by Edward Marsh Williams, Registration and Returning Officer, hut that owing to Ins resignation there was no such person to sustain tho objections, for although another person had boon appointed ho could kijoiy nothing of the matter.” Mr. Lawlor sustained tho objection, and tho whole list objected to were placed on tho roll. It is also said, although Mr. Williams know nothing of it, that tho Natives knew that ho was to ho ousted from office.

We now come to the defence set up, on behalf of tho Government, by their Christchurch organ. “ The share of the Government in tho transaction,” wo are told, “ ended with the resignation of Mr. Williams.” Just so. That gentleman had dared to do what ho considered his duty in objecting to certain claims to vote. If his objections were sustained, tho seat would not bo in the keeping of Ministers; ho is told to resign. A successor is appointed who knows nothing of tho matter; a Ministerial hanger-on takes what he calls a “ fatal ” objection, and the 400 claims aro allowed to pass. Th,c Lift tel ton Times tries to remove the blame of the transaction from the shoulders of Ministers to those of tho Revising Officer. Our contemporary says

The revising officer, Mr Lawlor, instead of sustaining Mv- Tolo’s objection, ought,

especially as ho knew all about the case himself, to have seen its transparent folly. . . . . It is a most monstrous and unheard-of thing this putting a man out of Court on the assumption of his ignorance. But granted that he was ignorant. The duty of the Revising Officer in that case was simply to adjourn the Court until the new registration officer could cither master the facts for himself—and there is not any attempt made to show that this was difficult—or appear in Court with his predecessor as his chief witness. But Mr Lawlor did none of these things. He simply—we speak ns if the story told by the New Zealand Times is correct, but for its correctness we should be exceedingly sorry to vouch—was gulled into making a fool of himself by the astute Mr. Tole. It is not hinted that Mr. Lawlor— Lawless he ought to be called, we think—is in the interests of the Government. On the contrary, it is especially stated that he disallowed these very four hundred claims on a previous occasion, from which we may infer that he is not at all events in the habit of favouring Government, for these claims are carefully described as Greyite claims. It is clear, therefore, according to the very groundwork of the charge made, that the Government is blameless in this matter.

So the unfortunate revising officer is to bo blamed for all that has happened. Our contemporary must have but a poor opinion of the capacity of its readers if it thinks the 1 defence : sot up will convince any one —oven the most blinded supporter of tho Government—of Ministers’ “ blamolossuoss in the matter.” Why was Mr. Williams called on to resign the day before his objections were to bo hoard ? Our contemporary assorts that the decision of the Court should have been in no way affected by the dismissal of the old registration officer. In that case why was ho not allowed to retain office till his objections wore hoard ? If it makes no difference, why was the harbormaster and pilot—a gentlemen dependent on the Government for his situation—suddenly appointed ? “ The share of the Government in the transaction ended with the resignation of Mr. Williams,” says the Times, but their share in the transaction was nevertheless a large one. Although Mr. Williams could only be informed of the wishes of the Government by telegraph, Mr. Tole, a Ministerial hanger-on, was enabled to bo present. Ho could be warned in time to bo there to take a “ fatal” objection to the hearing of the cases. He pleaded, as a contemporary points out, “an act of the Government as a bar to further inquiry by the revising officer,” and he was successful. The Times says, if the story is correct, Mr. Lawlor was “ gulled into making a fool” of himself by that obedient follower of the Premier—Mr. Tole. But there is no getting away from the fact that it was an act of the Government which was the means of placing 400 of their supporters on the roll. But for that act Mr. Williams would have appeared in Court, and we presume—the Times admits as much also—Mr. Lawlor would have given tha same decision as before. Yet our contemporary can see no harm in what the Government have done. Either the former decision of the revising officer was wrong, or disguise it as our contemporary may, the administrative act of the Government was the moans of effecting a most scandalous corruption of the electoral roll. To throw blame upon an officer who was led innocently into the trap is another contemptible feature of the affair. But we are getting accustomed to such a method of transacting public business in the colony, and to the blind and unhesitating support of Government acts, however discreditable, at the hands of those journals which Ministers are pleased to denominate their “ friends.”