Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1895. Our Leader.

Manawatu Herald, 19 March 1895, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1895. Our Leader.

At the meeting of the Otaki Licensing Committee Mr Skerrett sought to make capital against Mr Thynne beoause, as he assumed, he waa the author of an article appearing in our issue of the 2nd March, headed " The Levin License." According to the report appearing in the Post, taken to avoid the appearance of ♦• bias," we find Mr Skerrett said :— "A member of the Committee, Mr Tbjnne, had expressed in a leading article in a paper published by him the opinion that the applicant could not succeed in his application for legal reasons, and that if the members of the Committee granted the license they would be liable to be fined, Mr Thynne, therefore, had shown himself so biassed as sot to be capable of acting judicially upon the application." It would appear that in the eyea I of counsel for a committee-man to have read the laws under which he acts, is improper, and to understand them, much more improper. Mo leading article, than ours of the 2nd March was more justified, as the report of the whole proceedings published in the Pott proves. The application of Mr Campbell was refused for " legal reasons " and if a thorough knowledge of the law in that case, and its utterance, proves " bias " then no man exhibited greater " bias " than the Chairman, Mr Stanford, B.M. did, as he ruled I

unmistakably upon the law, and finding the majority of the Committee failed to appreciate his representation of the law, in fact were so unbiassed that they would have preferred to break the law rather than have acknowledged they had not previously observed the point, said he had to consider two positions, and had decided that should the Committee proceed with this matter in the face of theSu-pi-prae Court decision it. would be his duty to retire so as not to be mixed up in the subsequent proceedings. The law was positively laid down, and he must state it, and leave the responsibility of taking a different course to the remainder of the Committee, As a matter of fact the Committee did, at last, act upon the Chairman's law, and for " legal reasons " refuse to deal with the application. It will be stated that we also put other legal reasons forward ; this we admit, and we do not appear to be far wrong, as Mr Gully urged that a note should be taken of his objection to the granting of the application upon one of the points we raised. Thp attack upon Mr Thynne was merely an attempt to secure the success of the application by driving one member opposed to it off the Committee. The absurdity of the attack lies in the fact that the application to remove the license from Manakau was the third that had been made, and the whole Committee were a 9 much " biassed " as Mr Thynne, inasmuch, in common with him they had in September and in December, publicly expressed . their opinions upon it. As a further proof of the absurdity of tbe attempt to fasten the odium of "bias" only on Mr Thyune, we will quote again from the Posfi report, by which it will be readily inferred that the opinions of all but one of the members of the Committee were well known, yet nothing was said about it. The report says : — " In the interval between the arrival of the trains and the opening of the Court at noon, the members of the Committee were each the centre of a little group discussing excitedly the position, but chief attention was paid to Mr McCuUocli, whose attitude upon the transfer vjos not known, and whose i } ote if cast for it would produce a tie, when the new Magistrate would have to exercise his canting vote. This the Chairman was known to be anxious not to do, and he had applied without avail that Mr Brabant, the late Magistrate for the district, be sent to preside on this occasion." The italics are ours, used to emphasize the remarks made by an unbiassed reporter, and shows that not only on that morning, prior to the Court opening, the views of the Committee-men were known and canvassed, but even much earlier, as the Magistrate had applied, for fear of being called upon to give his casting vote, for Mr Brabant to take his nlacp. The applicant's solicitor ha? thus shown more " bias " in singling out Mr Thynne for an attack, than ever Mr Thynne has shown by the article we published.