Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus in jurare verba magistri. THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1870.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 782, 28 April 1870, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus in jurare verba magistri. THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1870.

A series of statements in the Herald's leading article of Tuesday last —to the effect that the Otago Daily Times, in its issue of the 16th inst., apologises for the incorrect state ments it had published from its Napier correspondent; that it was " heartily ashamed of its correspondent "; and that, having furnished a corrected estimate, " after the lapse of a decent interval, it will probably avail itself of still further corrections" —led us to examine the article in question more minutely; for we must confer that, having read the said article, the "shame" and the "apology" had not been manifest to us. The re-perusal of the article fails also to make these things ap pear ; but tlie Herald's comments on it does show the shifts to which the organs oi' the Government are put to make the worse appear the better cause. So far from apologising or expressing shame, the journal in question says, " exception was of course taken to our correspondent's figures by the Ministerial journals; but the hostile criticism did not succeed in removing the impression they created;" and the corrected estimate of the expenditure it gives is one which it has purposely placed so low that no exception could be taken to it by Ministerial journals. In place, then, of an approximate total of 3,700 men on Government pay, and which it was admitted might be somewhat in excess of the actual number, it puts 2,400 men, as one that is subject to no such possibility, but absolutely indisputable, in order to convict die Government of the very charges made by its Napier correspondent, and to prove that " whatever the expenditure may be theie has been no material reduction in point of number during the present administration," and by a comparison of the above indisputable estimate v,ith a return of the number of colonial forces on pay about a fortnight before the present Ministry took office, it shows " that the number of men recently on pay presents no material reduction whatever. Mr Fox has paid 342 men less than Mr Stafford paid; and while the Armed Constabulary has been reduced some 600 men, the number of friendly natives has been doubled." It goes on to show, of course indisputably, that we have a yearly expenditure of, in round numbers, £220,000 in pay and rations alone, to which a liberal allowance must be added for horseflesh, muni tions of war, transport, and other incidental items, and gives as a rough total the sum of £360,000 a year for the 2,400 men admittedly employed b) the present Ministry. Under the circumstances it suggestively adds that it will be glad to learn that the vote of last session (£150,000) has not been appreciably exceeded, as is so constantly affirmed by the organs of the Government; and we shall be shall be equally glad to learn the same ourselves. The article is, in fact, a most damaging criticism on the Government—far

more so than anything that journal has previously published; because, arguing from indisputable and admitted figures, it arrives at precisely the same conclusions that it did before.