The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1874.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 248, 19 October 1874, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1874.

The iate of Mr. George Hodgson is instructive to more classes of the community than one. The Provincial servants may learn bow intimate is the connection between the tenor of their evidence in the witness box and their own tenure of office. Tho3e who have entrusted the reins to Mr O'Conor may gain fuller appreciation of the truth of the old adage about "setting a beggar on horseback," and they will perhaps, admit that untried men in high places are not necessarily safe or dignified. New brooms only sweep clean on condition that the new brooms themselves are clean. The public may convince themselves that Mr Curtis is now absolutely powerless, and reduced to a position in which registering Mr O'Conor'ti decrees is his sole function, for, whatever Mr Curtis' faults may have been, the cowardly desertion of old and tried friends and public servants was never one of them. Oar present position is really serious in the last degree. Here we have absolute in all Provincial matters a gentleman who deems ii consistent with his duty to the public not only to override the law himself, hat to regard with disfavor the simple discharge of a public servant's duty as a citizen. If Mr Hodgson could have been shown to be inefficient in his present post, it was Mr O'Conor's duty to have discharged him long since. If he bes been guilty of any misconduct we have a right to know it. But certainly to degrade him the day after be give evidence in a Court of Jusiice which was not favorable to his employers is worse than undignified spite. It is an action calculated to dispirit the Provincial servants, and to lower the morality of a class whose high honor should be their first qualification Perhapß we sbali be told that Mr Hodgson's evidence was incorrect. In that case Mr Hodgson should be indited for perjury. He should be given a chance of defending himself at least. He is not fit, if his evidence was not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to remain for one instant in the public service, either here or on the West Coaat, less, indeed, there than here where he would have Mr O'Conor's vigilant eye upon him. In any case an act has been done calculated to bring the Provincial Government foto discredit. If that was Mr O'Conor'a object — and, as he is an antiProvincialist, possibly it was — -though be could have taken no more effectual method, he could not have adopted one more repugnant, not oniy to good taste and gentlemanly feeling, but even to the humblest pretensions of morality and public duty.