LOBBYING IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4361, 12 March 1875, Page 3

LOBBYING IN AMERICA.

(From the Melbourne Argus.) Our latest files of New York papers contain a report of the investigations instituted by the Committee of Ways and Means in Congress, for the purpose of ascertaining how the famous Pacific mail subsidy was " lobbied" through the Legislature. According to the testimony of Mr. Sage, late President of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, the cheques of that company to the amount of £150,000 were drawn in favor of one Irwin, to be expended in Washington; and the following minutes of the examination are worth citing, in order to show how sublime and beautiful is the confidence which human beings still continue to repose in the integrity and guilelessness of their fellow-men : " Q. Has Mr. Irwin at any time given any explanation to you touching these cheques, or any amount of money placed in his hands ? Not the slightest in the world. " Q. Has there been any explanation furnished to the company from San Francisco or elsewhere as to the use of any sums of money in connection with the subsidy ?—No, sir ; not any. "Q. Have you any knowledge of the expenditure of any sum at Washington authorised by the company ? —Not a dollar. "Q. What was the form of those cheques to Irwin ?—They were simply the company's cheques to Richard B. Irwin or order. :' Q. Without stating the object ?—Without the object. The money was paid in to his own private account by Irwin, in May, 1872 ; and £65,000 of it was drawn out in three separate cheques, while one for £55,000, and another for £23,000, were cashed by two strangers, who were unwilling to identify themselves, but one of whom proved to be Mr. W. S. King, the postmaster of the House of Representatives. This was found out by the detectives employed by the bank authorities, who could not dispute the genuineness of Irwin's signature to the £55,000 cheque, but thought it very suspicious that it should not be passed through another bank in the usual way. Irwin was to be arraigned before the bar of the House bn the sth of January last ; and several men who were known as influential members of the lobby in 1872, and whose connection with this particular job is notorious, are in a state of great trepidation. It is confidently anticipated that the committee will succeed in unearthing some of the scoundrels who were enriched out of the corruption fund, and the friends of honest government in the United States must rejoice that the time has at length arrived when a check is about to be administered to that infamous system of venal legislation which has reached such alarming dimensions under the rule of the Republican party.