The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1878.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 430, 22 November 1876, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1878.

" We shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right: e shall defer to no man justice or right.”

The Commissioners appointed to bold a Court of Enquiry in the Wilson v. Rogan business, finished their work last Friday, after sitting fourteen days ; and, we believe, that they have performed their task in an impartial, straightforward manner—at any rate, as we have no reason for suggesting that they hnve not done so, we will give them the benefit of the doubt, if any exists. Mr W. W. Wilson appeared as counsel for Mr Rogan, and Mr Commissioner Wilson conducted his own case ; very few witnesses were examined, in comparison with the army of numbers arrayed before the public, who had been led to expect a “ cloud of witnesses,” who would run up a nice little bill, and occupy the Commission as many weeks as it lias done days. Assuming, then, that a full enquiry has been effected, Dr Giles and Major Brown, deserve the thanks of the Government, and the Colony, for bringing to so early, and apparently satisfactory, a close, a most painful investigation. These gentlemen will, probably, return to : their homes by the liangatira tomorrow, and, equally probable is it, that this is the last we shall hear of the matter until Parliament meets — perhaps not then — which, in the ordinary way of business, will be next June. So far, so well. But now that the enquiry is over, and in view of the fact that the public interest in the matter will have considerably abated when (if ever) the result is known, we deem it our duty to say a word or two in addition to what we have already advanced. On the 21st of October we expressed a hope that the investigation would be “ searching and complete,” and that there would be “ no SHAM about the affair.” We also stated our opinion that the enquiry should be conducted openly so that the public might judge for themselves. We have no reason to alter that opinion now. Indeed, we have much greater reason to reiterate it; for, without inculpating the Commissioners in any way, they have been the instruments, in the hands of the Government, by wlii.'-h one of the greatest shams, (we express the word most emphatically) ever known in any Civil Service, lin any country under the sun, has I been perpetrated in this Royal, Commission Enquiry. Royal grandmother! What, in the n’sme of common sense, constituted the difference—except in degree—in this squabble between Mr Commissioner Wilson, and Judge Rogan, and that which may have happened between any other two Government officials ? True, there, is

a difference in degree, but quite insufficient to establish a necessity for surrounding the enquiry with the atmosphere of Royal sanction. Had the position of the principals engaged been that of two lower subordinates—say two clerks in their own offices—there would have been much less fuss over the matter; each, accused, as Messrs Wilson and Rogan, stand accused, would have been summarily suspended from duty, until an investigation had acquitted or condemned one or the other. And why not so with these gentlemen ? Why are justice and expediency convertible terms in the Civil Service of New Zealand ? Mr Commissioner Wilson charged Mr Rogan, a gentleman holding the high and important office .of Judge of the Native Land Court, with official corruption and turpitude, who, in replication—the terms and method of which carries its own reproof—accuses Mr Commissioner Wilson of having squandered large sums of public money, and most insubordinately accuses bis immediate departmental superior, the Native Minister, with having made false statements to the House of Representatives ! Now we. ask (and, presently, we shall give good and valid reasons for asking) why these two gentlemen were not suspended from active duty until the Commissioners had furnished their Report to the Government? Political necessity had placed it beyond Mr Commissioner Wilson’s power to squander any more money ; but it is most unsatisfactory for judge Rogan to be holding his Court .while the charge — baseless, it may be—of collusion and “ring” intriguing is hanging, like the sword of Damocles, over his head. In thus arguing, we are not to be understood as subscribing to the belief that the charges on either side are true, wholly or in part. We have formed no opinion ou the matter; but we do deprecate the action of the Government in this matter from the beginning, as being of the most reprehensibly partial character, and, as we have said, one of the most flagrant shams,andpieceof official humbugging, ever hatched in that very hot-bed of shams, and official crookedness—the Native Department. Had there exist d a desire in the mind of Sir Donald McLean to sift this matter to the bottom, and to uphold the integrity of the Civil Service, an ordinary Commission of Enquiry would , have sufficed—sharp, short, and decisive,— instead of that, the “ Great Mystery

Man ” can be satisfied with nothing but what assimilates to the orb in which he moves. Everything must be esoteric, dark, mysterious, and the Boy al Enquiry just ended, comes fully within the scope of the whole three. Had the charges and counter-charges of these two officials been of an ordinary nature, and involved nothing in which the public interests were at stake, the usual departmental investigation would have sufficed ; but, if there was oue reason more cogent than another in support of an open aud public enquiry, it was to be found in the fact that many persons outside the Government Service were implicated, as well as other officers in the service, but unconnected with either party. The fact is, the Government, or rather the Native Department, does not want any more publicity given to the matter than cannot be'avoided, and the Native Minister knew that a Commission appointed by the Governor, was the most effectual means to , that end, as it now rests with His Excellency whether the Report of the Commissioners ever reaches Parliament or not.

Contrasting the above with a similar case of recent occurrence, we proceed with our reasons for enquiring why Mr Commissioner Wilson, and Judge Rogan, were not suspended forthwith, not for the purpose of anticipating judgment, or for humiliating those officers, but to preserve an air of respectable consistency in the service. Some of our readers may not be aware that Mr Nancarrow, the Inspector of Steamers for the Colony—a gentleman high in rank in his profession with 14 years’ service, and holding a far more responsible position under the Government than either Mr Commissioner Wilson or Judge Rogan do —was peremptorily suspended from duty on, we believe, the unsupported opinion of an unprofessional clerk, of the third or fourth generation, in the Public Works Office; and so great was the public interest in the matter, and, we may say, so much was public indignation aroused, that Mr Stafford, in his place in the House, asked the Government for the production of the correspondence relating to Mr Nancarrow’s suspension. The Wellington Evening Argus, in alluding to the subject says:—

Recently the boilers of the Taranaki and Napier were condemned, and removed. They were broken up, and some busy body or other said they were in a condition which showed gross neglect on the pari of the Inspector. Mr Nancarrow was in Auckland at this time and was immediately telegraphed for. Ho returned, and without being asked for an explanation, was suspended till a board of enquiry sat.

The result of the enquiry was, that Mr Nancarrow was fully exonerated from blame by the Board—Messrs Carruthers and Blackett, who did not sit as Royal Commissioners—and, of course, re-instated in his office. Now, where is the essential difference in this case, from that in which these other two officers are concerned, that fish should be mads of one, and flesh of the other, unless it be to burke the whole affair, and so avoid further scandal, since it must follow as a most necessary consequence, that, whichever charge is substantiated, the effect of the blow will recoil on the head of Sir Donald McLean himself ?