PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1881. EIRE INQUESTS.

Patea Mail, 2 April 1881, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1881. EIRE INQUESTS.

The Wanganui Chronicle has stated the case of the company which forced a Coroner’s inquest re the drapery fire at Patea. It is not necessary to suggest that it has done so at the insurance company’s request. The Chronicle does not hesitate to say, however, that the article which appeared in the Maid was written so elaborately in favor of the Messrs Skelley, that “a good many persons will be inclined to believe that it was written at their suggestion or at their inspiration.” This language is intended to insinuate that the tenor of the article was u suggested ” to us, and that the 11 inspiration ” took the form of payment. Now here is a subject which an average journalist might be expected to discuss on its merits, without having interested suggestions put in his ear, and without bribery as an inspiration. But at Wanganui the standard of morals does not rise above inuendo and insinuation of bribery—if the journal under notice is to bo taken as a standard of local morals. Would it not have sufficed for the Wanganui journal to have stated its opinion on the merits of the fire inquest at Patea, without insulting the public in this district with a wretched indirect charge of dishonesty against the Mail ? It appears we cannot have an opinion even about a fire inquest without taking it second-hand from some interested person willing to pay for its publication. How easy it would be to fling this Wanganui standard of morals back at its author ! But one wrong does not justify another, and a protest shall suffice.

The Mail asked why an enquiry was held in the Patea case. The Chronicle asks why it should not have been held. These two views represent the whole difference between the insurance company and the public who have insured. We say the company’s district manager knew all the evidence that could be laid before the Coroner, and bis commonsense ought to have shown him bow devoid was that evidence of a single suspicious fact. Knowing all the evidence, ho insisted on a formal inquest. He was not willing to acquit the parties of a suspicion, but would insist on putting questions to them in Court tending to show they had little or no stock in the place when it took fire. This was cruel and unfair, because he could have ascertained by private inquiry how much new stock they had bought within three months, and from the merchants lie could have learnt how much of the stock so ordered had been delivered, and when. If this company had made inquiry as to goods recently ordered and received by the insured trader, and if this information had been refused, it is then the suspicion of fraud would arise. Or inquiry might show that no goods had been recently delivered : that would be evidence of fraudulent intent.

A forced inquest in sucli a case is monstrous, because no custom exists by which every fire shall he enquired into, nor does the Colonial Company itself insist on an inquest in every case. Thus it follows that when an inquest is insisted on, that fact carries suspicion, and amounts to an unpublished indictment against the parties whose property has

been burnt. It amounted to an indictment in the Patea case, and was so treated by the majority of the public. The case of Messrs Skelley interests us for two reasons ; lirst because a hardship has been done without reasonable cause; aad chiefly because this case shows that any or every person insured in the same company may be subjected to the same treatment any clay, however innocent of blame he may be. The position we take is this; Either every fire should be followed by an inquest, like every sudden death, or no inquest should be held unless and until tangible evidence of fraud or evidence justifying suspicion has been obtained. No man of sense can say that a single suspicious circumstance was shown in the Patea inquiry.