The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1319, 15 November 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1880.

Amgnost the victims of the retrenchment policy were a number of operators of the Telegraph Department. Strange to say, they mainly consisted —not of the useless and heavy-salaried encumbrances of the department, but of those who, objecting to work for a pittance, whilst drones enjoyed tha credit and the pay which justly belonged to others, went out on strike when the department signified their intention of reducing their -wages. Mr. Maginnity, Secretary of the Commissioner of the Telegraph Department, was credited with having been the instigator of these reductions. They may, or may not, have bee necessary. We do not intend to discuss that matter now. We should not have made even a bare reference to the fact, had we not felt that if; was necessitated as bearing upon a new feature which has arisen in connection with the management of the department. It appears that when the operators above referred to received their dismissals they proceeded to New South Wales in search of employment. We will let one of their number tell how they fared in that Colony. Writing to a friend in Auckland, he saV3 ; _f" Mr. Walter, the manager at Sydnev, told me I would have to start at 3 salary of LlO4, if Mr. Cracknell would accept my services, but that the Superintendent had received a letter from Mr. Maginnity, particularly asking him not to take on any of the men who had struck in New Zealand. Mr. Walker said he would do his best for me." We take this extract from the New Zealand Herald, and can vouch for its authenticity. It seems almost incredible that a man who should be filled with «ratitude on account of the liberality of the Colony in maintaining him in a sinecure yet lucrative position, should have diverged so far from the dignity which he should maintain as one of the heads of a lanje and important department of the public service. Truly, " Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." If Mr. Magindit\'s time had been fully occupied, and if he had correctly realised the responsibility and dignity attaching to his position,he would have had neither the time nor the meanness to carry his persecutions of men on whom he had already wreaked his vengeance beyond the bounds of the Colony. His action reminds us forcibly of that of the barbarian who pierces his victim with poisoned arrows until he is thrice dead, and then, to gratify his savage nature, decapitates him. Mr. Magfnnity had, by acts unworthy of any man making the smallest pretence to the possession of humane instincts, acquired a name that is scarcely ever mentioned without feelings of contempt. But Mr. Maginnity is once more before the public. Of course he expected people to believe that in his treatment of the operators of the department he was influenced by no other desire than that of performing the duties of his office so as to protect the interests of the Colony. If there were in this Colony any persons who gave him credit for such a laudable intention, a3 an excuse for his heartless conduct, we think they will now see that there is a probability that their charitableness was misplaced. A man who is guilty of an act of malignity such as that with which Mr. Maginnity is now charged, is unworthy of the respect and confidence of the public—he should be called upon to forfeit his official position. If the accusation brought against Mr. Maginnity be true, he exceeded his pnblic duty for the purpose of hunting down men whose only offence against him was that they set a highor price on their labor than he did, and sought to secure that price by adopting means which, although perhaps inexpedient, were nevertheless perfectly honorable. Did these operators, in thus insisting upon what they considered to be their rights, perform an act worthy of a scourge that threatens to follow them menacingly and direfully till they are beyond human powpr and the exercise of a cruel and despicable agency 1 We anticipate the reply ; there can be but one outside the walls of Mr. Maginnity's bureau, if men honestly state their convictions. Do we live in a free country sheltered under the wing of the British Empire, and enjoying that liberty which is the mainspring of a Constitution admired, envied, and sought to be imitated by the world? We will not say nay. In the main Colonists are their own rulere. It is only occasionally that a Ministry, or an individual, plays the "fantastic tricks" which a puny soul or love of power dictates, snch menshould be abscinded as unhealthy i excrescences, lest they disfigure, or even contaminate, the body politic. Perhaps Mr. Maginnity can prove that he is not worthy of such treatment. He would not have much difficulty in satisfying the Government on the point—the public would not be so easily satisfied. It is his duty to explain away the charge of having tampered with the heads of the Telegraph Department in Sydney and Capetown with the object of reducing to a state of starvation those whom he discharged from his department. It may be an easy task ; if it is, let him perform it. We should be glad to find that the public have been mistaken in the estimate they have formed of Mr. Maginnity.