GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 53, 4 February 1870, Page 3

GOVERNMENT PATRONAGE.

(To ih* Editor of the Mopnx IdaChboxicle./ SiE,-r-TheDuiiedin papers inform us that; Mr. J. B; Borton, late Gold Receiver at Roxburgh, has been offered! and-accepted the appointment of Warden and .Resident Magistrate for the Teviot. It will, be remembered that in 1868, Mr. Stratford, at present Gold at St; Bathans, who at that time:held the appointment of Warden at Switzers, was, as were also other Wardens,(discharged on the ground that a reduction in the stafi of Wardens had become necessary; and wMle the other Wardens, whose services: were at the same time dispensed with,received compensation according to their: length of service, Mr. Stratford preferred to fall back:, upon the subordinate position which he had previously held, and bide his time. He was appointed Gold Receiver at Blacks, and therefrom subsequently transferred to St. Bathan*. As no charge of incompetency or otherwise was preferred, or even insinuated, against Mr. Stratford, at the time of his 'being dispossessed of his office of Warden, and no reason assigned for the course pursued by the Government other than that of economy and expediency; it certainly appears strange—if not something worse—that, on an occasion when the appointment of an additional Warden ha<Lbeen resolved upon by the, a gentleman should haveibeen appointed to that office new to its"duties; while the services of an old and tried Warden were passed over and ignored. In acting in this, matter as they, have the Government appear to me to have sacrificed an old servant for the purpose of exercising their patronage—rather, for .political influence, party motives, or private friendship, than for the good of the public, the interest of the miners, or their own character as honest and independent am, &c, --■■'-■ ':■ • s -v■"■''.'■■'".-/ /:,- :■■'..} ' ; Naaeby, Feb. 2,-1870. U,