The Hastings Standard Published Daily SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1897. THE PRESIDENT OF THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

Hastings Standard, Issue 399, 14 August 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily

SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1897. THE PRESIDENT OF THE BANK OF NEW ZEALAND.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

We have not for a long time seen so much brazen impudence concentrated in a single newspaper article as is shown in the editorial article of the New Zealand Times last Thursday under the same heading as appears above. The Evening Post in a very temperate and judical " leader " called rfor the public examination of Sir W. Watson the President of the Bank of New Zealand, and gave copious reasons ■why this examination was desirable. The New Zealand Times editor forthwith interviewed the President at his private residence, willingly swallowed all that that astute gehtleman stuffed down his throat, and regaled the readers of the paper with " extract of Watson," or, as we prefer to call it, concentrated essence of impudence. The " We " of the New Zealand Times comes out with this tit-bit: " If his traducers will but make a direct charge of dishonesty or malpractice, they will find that the President of the Bank of New Zealand will not fail to vindicate his honor." How very verdant Mr Wat-son must think the publicists of the colony, and what a remarkably " soft thing " he wants, to allow himself to be publicly examined. Perhaps it is not quite right to say soft thing," for the honor of the President of the Bank of New Zealand would be valued at many thousands of pounds, at any rate in his own estimation, and a verdict in his favor would be anything but agreeable or pleasant to those who had to pay. But is not the New Zealand Times a little bit impudent in characterising those who are opposed co Mr Watson on public grounds as traduceis ? Is it not possible to conceive that there are still a few journalists left in the colony whose highest ambition is to guard the public, to secure for the psople their rights ? If we believe the .New Zealand Times there are no such public spirited journalists in the colony, and if there are any they are to be found only on the staff of Wellington's morning paper. Our contemporary fancies it is deluding the public and succeeds remarkably well in deluding itself. The defence of Mr Watson in the New Zealand Times has all the appearance of being an article written to order; it may not actually be so, but it certaiffly looks very much like it. The New Zealand Times with its impudent assertions, innuendoes and inferences burks the whole question. It fails to appreciate public opinion or if it does possess a grasp of how the public view the matter it studiously avoids giving expression to it in its columns. We ask our readers—those o! them who Kaye

even in a cursory way followed the banking blunders—if they do not cherish the idea that Mr Watson should cease to be Presid3nt of the Bank of New Zealand. And if we were to ask any one for a definite reason why this idea prevails, why Mr Watson should retire, we do t not believe there are half-a dozen people who could furnish us with a satisfactory answer. The fact is there has been a mass of information given to the public, and in this the name of Mr Watson has cropped up again and again, and the impression left on the public mind is that Mr Watson is not a fit and proper person to hold the responsible and important position of President of the Bank of New Zealand. This may be condensed into a few words. The public have no confidence in Mr Watson. But it does not follow that the public are justified in holding this view. All those matters which have helped to create the feeling of no-confidence in the public mind may be possibly of the fullest and most complete explanation ; but until that explanation is given, and given in the right place, which, we submit, is the Supreme Court, and in the proper way, which, we again submit, is by public examination, the public will nurse—they cannot help nursing the feeling of want of confidence in Mr W. Watson. So that those who urge that Mr Watson should be put through his facings are not traducers, as the Naw Zealand Times, the mouthpiece of Mr Watson, impudently asserts, but fairminded men, who, in calling for Mr Watson's examination, are discharging a public duty. It would be an insult to Mr Watson's intelligence to assert that he is not cognisant of the public feeling, and why he does not court inquiry and re-instate himself with the public is a matter upon which we can offer no opinion. It is best known to himself, but the public are not so M T ooden-headed as not to be able to draw an inference, and they do draw inferences which are not favorable to the President. There are two paragraphs in the New Zealand Times articles that are worth reproducing. They are : "We put it to our readers if any other man, placed in the same position as Mr Watson, during a trying financial period, could have acquitted himself more uprightly or with greater ability;" and further: "It is, to say the least, deplorable that these constantly recurring attacks should be made upon a man who has done the colony good service, who has upheld the honor of his position, and who is discharging his duties with acceptance to the institution with which he is connected and to the people of New Zealand as a whole." After reading these two extracts we think our readers will agree that the champagne that may have punctuated the interview between President and editor must have been remarkably good, and must have stimulated the energies of the interviewer, for be appears to have accurately grasped all that was passing through the mind of the President. We may take it that those two paragraphs represent Mr Watson's modest opinion of his abilities and services to the country ; if so, we should like to buy Sir Watson at our own estimate and sell him at his. Such a simple transaction would enable us to retire from journalistic work and live in bloated ease. It is a pity the " We" of the New Zealand Times cannot write all " on his own," for when free articles appear in the paper we must confess they are educative and delightful reading, but " written to order " stuff is—well, stuff. We remember reading in CtFe New Zealand Times some nine months ago a " written to order " article on Mr Ward. It was just before the Batger compromise came before the Court, and Wellington's morning paper fluted as follows : " Everything comes to him who waits, and the complete justification of the Hon. J. G. Ward is near at hand." The other day the same paper advised Mr Ward not to contest the Awarua electorate, to in fact retire from public life; and thus we obtain the " complete justification" as foreshadowed by the paper.