MR FOX'S INCONSISTENCIES.

Patea Mail, Volume III, Issue 258, 29 September 1877, Page 2

MR FOX'S INCONSISTENCIES.

{To the Editor of the Patea Mail.) Sir,— l notice by extracts in your paper of yesterday, that the lion Mr Fox, in a speech in tlio House of Representatives, lias been very severe on the Resident Magistrate, Justices of the Pence, and police of this district. Mr Fox is no doubt a clever politician, but unfortunately his great abilities are often neutralised, and he sometimes holds himself up to ridicule by the marked inconsistency which often characteiises his actions. In referring to a case where a native was lined for drunkenness at llawcra, Mr Fox states that he pointed out to the magistrates the Act by which the publicans could have been fined for supplying grog to that native. Mr Fox makes no mention, however, of the reply made to him by one of the J.P.’s (Captain Wilson), “ That the magistrates at llawera were not justified in lining the publicans, as the supply of grog to natives had for some years been a custom over the whole colony. Nor were magistrates justified in fining publicans when the Government themselves encouraged the sale of spirits to natives, by granting licenses to natives to sell in purely native districts.” When the bon Mr Fox was Premier, and, consequently, at the head of the Government, licenses or permits were granted—one to Patohi, at Oeo, and another to Rukn Kato, at Kaupokonui, and these permits or licenses were granted to these natives, who were permitted to sell spirits in purely native and disturbed districts —with the concurrence of the Government, of which the hon Mr Fox was at that time the head. Since the passing of “ The Sale of Spirits Ordinance, 1847,” the lion Mr Fox has been at the head of three different MinisteriesDuring those periods that he held office, grog was freely sold to natives all over the colony. Yet wo never heard of a Fox Government enforcing that superannuated Act, which Mr Fox now, as a private member, condemns the present Government for not having enforced J am giving no opinion as to the merits or demerits of the Act. I merely wish to point out the hon Mr Fox’s absurd inconsislenci/ in tints condemning the Government, magistrates, police, anti publicans, when his own Government actucdl;/ committed a greater breach of the laic, by allowing natives public houses to sell grog, in disturbed and purely native districts.—l am, &c., FAIR PLAY. llawcra, Sept. 27, 1877. rt