Untitled

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 23, 5 December 1861, Page 2

To the Editor of the Hawke's Eat/ Times. Sir, —In the Herald of the 30th ult. appears a letter from 0. P. S., a gentleman who appears to have had his sensitive nature a good deal ruffled by your article of the 21st ult. "When you commenced your undertaking of correcting political abuses, you no doubt contemplated making political enemies. No man likes'to have his £s. d. diminished, whatever it may he, and 0. P. S. being in Provincial pay might have used I. P. P. as his nom de plume with more propriety. 0. P. S. naturally enough feels wrath at any remarks likely to affect him so closely in this particular. Ido not remember any recommendation of any such wholesale slaughter of the Provincial staff as 0. P. S. refers to, but I noticed that you very properly regret that the result of the last election was the return of a gentleman in receipt of Government salary as one of the town members, and one whom I consider, from his past political career, very unsuitable to sit in Council. I shall deal with this personage more at length by and bye, and meanwhile will point out to you the kind of Government promised by 0. P. S.’s late patron, Mr. T. If. Fitzgerald. A t a separa-

tion meeting held on the 20th September, 1858, he says—“ The new Province might be very inexpensively governed. There was no need of Speaker, Provincial Secretary, Treasurer, or Solicitor. The Superintendent and two Clerks might in fact do the whole of the work, and the consequence of such economical arrangements would be that even out of the ordinary revenue a large surplus would remain for public works.” This was the kind of Government we were lead to believe would be established, and what it has been I need not further point out. Now Mr. O. P. S. asks “can you deny that it is the first duty of a Government to seek faithful (?) servants ?” No ! 0. P. S., and when Government gets “good men and true I should” like to see them in any necessary office, but not sitting in Council at the same time, voting

their own pay, and you Sir, have begun with the dirty work first when you condemned this practice. Look into the conduct of the Provincial Treasurer and the late Superintendent—what have been the faithful services of the former gentleman ?—the Tribune of the People, who the better to serve then; interest took the first Provincial situation he could get. He was not a hungry place seeker, oh no ! —he was only ready at the call of duty. A political opponent of Mr. Fitzgerald’s before he got into Council, and as soon as he found that a little business could be done together he became the yood mate of of the good captain ! and supported the policy of the worthy (sic.,) Superintendent. Ah ! 0. P. S., place is a convincing reasoner, it opens men’s eyes and it has opened those of the late Auditor’s (worthy man) to the great integrity of his late honor. 0. P. S. asks can you advance any reason which will justify or persuade why officers should not be as as well paid for their talents as contractors for stationery and printing ? None whatever,—but printing and stationery are let out for public competition, but Provincial Treasurers are sometimes appointed for political purposes, and should not therefore sit in council,,as contractors do not. Do you see the difference Mr. 0. P. S. ? Now, you know 0. P. S. that the Superintendent and two Clerks did not do the work of the Province—you know that the great ability of a quondam parson was required to keep the Government machine going—you 1 know that he was a very virtuous man, and that he had a great hatred of hypocrisy—that he wrote valuable Tracts for the Times about round holes and square pegs—that he had an immensity of learning about the Ancients and Scylla and Charybdis, a man with a rhinoseros hide, but a tried man, perfectly honest and pare, whose honor was above imputation—who decried clerks at anioderate salary to do Government stroke, but who does not object himself to protect the interest of the electors at the rate of A3OO a year. I am. Sir, Yours, &c. The last of the Tribunes. Napier, Nov. 30, 1801.