POLITICAL NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 84, 26 August 1912, Page 4

POLITICAL NOTES.

the hike expenses. The desperate efforts 'of the Reform newspapers to disguise the real facts in connection with the costs of the "Hine Inquiry" show how fearful they are lest tlioir last "scandal" should vanish into thin air and leave no'trace of impropriety behind it, says the Lyttelton Times. They now imply that if the Ward Government had said at the outset that, as the inquiry concerned the purity of public life, it would pay the costs of both sides to ensure a thorough investigation, there would have been no serious fault to find with the arrangement. This may be fairly taken as an admission that the late Government was justified in guaranteeing the costs of the defendants, "as the inquiry concerned the purity of public life," and it only remains to point out that Sir Joseph Ward offered to pay Mr. nine's costs when the nalure of his charges was fully disclosed. To have guaranteed them in advance would have been to take the guilt of the defendants for granted and to place a premium upon the manufacture of bogus charges for the sake of passing notoriety. We quite agree with our contemporaries that Mr. Hine's costs, or at least that portion of them connected with the charges which were substantiated, should have been paid by the State, but if the member, for Stratford prefers providing his party with a scandal to receiving a refund of his money it is entirelv his own affair, and he cannot reasonably expect to have the sympathy of the public as well- as the applause of bis political friends. He cannot, to quote a popular colloquialism, have it both ways.