EX-MINISTERS CLAIMS TO PENSIONS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5344, 14 May 1878, Page 3

EX-MINISTERS CLAIMS TO PENSIONS.

(From the Canterbury Press.) A Northern paper, with ■which Mr. Ballance s name is very closely associated by many contemporaries, and which is at all events a very unfaltering supporter of the Government, makes great capital out of the fact that three late Ministers have claims upon the colony. This circumstance seems to excite suspicion in the journalistic contingent of the Grey party. The article in question has been quoted far and wide, and numerous articles, brimming with patriotic horror at the insatiableness of these ex-Ministerial suppliants for their rights, have been published. The three ex-Ministera in question, are Br, Pollen, who claims a pension, Mr. Richardson, who desires the settlement of a long-standing claim against the Province of Canterbury, and Mr, Whitaker, whose claim is represented as “ not precisely of a pecuniary character,” but one “ involving large,public interests,” and “in connection with certain land exchanges." A more pitiful attempt to bring ; odium upon people who ask only for whatever recognition of their claims the law entitles them to has seldom been made. We are informed that ;■ —“It was a monstrous thing that three gentlemen so situated should have held seats in the same Ministry. Their position was one which, though they were as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, they could not 'scape calumny.” Accordingly the journal in question calumniates freely. Further it is added ;—“ It is matter for congratulation that these claims are to be submitted to the rigid scrutiny of a Ministry, the members of which have no individual axes to grind.” Of course we do not presume to know how far an “individual” axe differs from an ordinary weapon ; but if the metaphor is meant to imply that hone of the present Ministers are likely to use the colonial purse, and their colleagues’ credulousness, -to serve the selfish objects of particular trade cliques, we say that our contemporary is vouching for a great deal more than is likely to be credited on his mere assertion. We shall be greatly surprised, for instance, if Mr. Ballance does not find before, another twelve months has elapsed that some of his colleagues have had their private axes on the colonial grindstone. We trust he may not also find that all the edge has been ground off his self-respect. ’ . . But with respect to the three ex-Ministers who are alleged to be urging their claims in a manner regarded as so unreasonable by Ministerialists, we confess that so far we are quite unable to see where the impropriety lies. The Legislature has several times in the last few years had the subject of disqualification brought under its notice. .Acts have been passed, repealed, and new Acts passed for the purpose of better securing thafindependence of Parliament. Many people hold that the result of this legislation is very unsatisfactory; but none the less it must be accepted as being the expression of the Legislature's opinion on the subject. To insinuate, then,' that any man, Minister, or bottle-washer would, because he has held official position, commit an impropriety in • preferring any claim which he believes he has against the colony, , is to cast upon the Legislature the 'slur of incompetence,' and is tantamount to saying that the wisdom of individuals should be superior to the whole assembled, wisdom of the colony. The matter is not one for the exercise of delicacy, or at least it wouM be no exercise of delicacy to surrender an equitable right. Such surrender would be a gift,—a Quixotic impertinence, which a Ministry, who had any proper perception of their office, and the respect’due to the colony, would resent, and refuse to accept. In Urging any legal' claims they have, the ex-Ministers are to be regarded rather'as upholding the law and the dignity of the colony against those who, ’as we gather from the paper quoted, desire to evade the one, and in doing so must lessen the other. As to the merits of the several claims, nothing could be more satisfactory than to hear that they were to be submitted to the rigid scrutiny of impartial persons. -No one can desire that the colony should lose to Messrs. Pollen, Richardson, and Whitaker a fraction more than the pound of' flesh written in their several bonds. But what’jthey can lawfully take, that by all means let them have without unnecessary caviling or delay. The Government is the guardian not merely of the colony's purse, but of the colony’s good fame, and it will certainly not add to this if,a former Minister is compelled to resort to the Courts in order to obtain settlement of a just claim. But this is a contingency, by no means unlikely, if the inspired contemporary, from whose columns, we. .have quoted, may be taken as representing the Ministerial view of the matter. Now although the public are in no way concerned to protect the interest of the ex-Ministers," who have ample means of taking care of themselves, it is a matter of great public concern that honorable claims upon the colony should be entertained in no captious spirit, and particularly that all party differences should be excluded in their consideration. This, there is much reason to fear, will not be the spirit in which the claims in question will be considered. The “ monstrous thing ” will in that case bo found, riot in the fact that certain creditors of the colony, who are also useful public men, omit to insult the colony by offering to forego their supposed rights, but that political. feeling should be allowed to have any influence whatever upon the decision of plain matters of business which can only have one right and one wrong, a legal and an illegal side. , ’