The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 1891. ON THEIR KNEES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2179, 24 March 1891, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 1891. ON THEIR KNEES.

The way the Hod. John McKenzie brought the members of the Otago Board of Education to their knees was delightful. It will be remembered that the hon. the Minister of Education addressed a letter to the board some time ago, and that the beard treated it in a most contemptuous way, Mr McKenzie attended last Thursday's meeting of the hoard when another letter from the Minister of Education came up for discussion. This letter embodied a resolution passed by the Trades and Labor Council with regard to Whitcombe and Tombs' books, and of course this acted on the minds of the members of the board like a red rag is proverbially supposed to act on a bulL They pounced upon it at once, and proposed that it should be received, and then arose a discussion on the wickedness of the proposal made by UP r Earnshaw, M.H.R., to the effect that the Government should print school books, and distribute them free of charge to the children. Mr McKenzie quietly asked what had Mr Earnshaw to do with the letter before the board. The jaw of Mr Jago appears to have fallen at once, as he ssid it had nothing to do with it, and then Mr McKenzie proceeded to give his fellow-members a bit of his mind. He told them they ought to have received any communication from the Minister of Education in a courteous manner, but they had not done so because they were biased against the present Minister, and the present Govern, ment. Then rose a chorus of repudiation. They all at once disclaimed any bias against either the Minister or the Government, yet Mr Earnshaw's name still insisted on cropping up in the discussion as irresistibly, as the head of King Charles used to do in Mr Dick's memorial. Again Mi McKenzie had to ask what Mr Earnshaw had to do with it, and again no one could tell him. At last Mr McKenzie told them that the Minister of Education eould act without their advice, and that when he (Mr McKenzie) returned to Wellington he would advise the Minister to treat the Otago Board of Education with the contempt which they evidently desired to treat him. This brought matters to a crisis. Jaws fell still lower, with the result that a resolution was passed thanking , the Minister for his letter, and instructing the secretary to send him all the information he required. That certainly was a triumph, and nothing mow need be said about it only for the bare-faped impudence of the members in denying tftafc they were influenced by a political bias against Mr Beeves and the present Government. They could not open their Ups, and

indeed did not, without stowing | terrible amount of bias, and hence th reeson that Mr Earnshaw's name wa always cropping up in the discussion Mr Earnßhaw is not only one of the labor members for Dunedin, bat also a declared socialist, and a supporter of the present Government. This accounts for the milk in the cocoanut. However, the Otago Education Board has made itself extremely ridiculous—first by its bullying attitude, and secondly by its cowardly surrender. So unreasoning prejudice must always culminate.

A SERIOUS CHARGE. The Eailway Commissioners have apparently got themselves iato a meBS. Messrs Nelson Broe.,the famous exporters of frozen meat, wished to establish meat-works at Woodville, in the North Island, and asked the Commissioners to place an engine at their disposal bo that they could run special trains with frozen meat to Wellington whenever their vessels arrived in port. The Commissioners refused. Then, according to the Evening Post, Messrs Nelson Bros. offered to provide an engine of their own, but the offer was refused on the ground that the Department could not man it. Then Messrs Nelson Bros, offered to provide the men, but the Commissioners would not allow the men of a private firm to run a tram on the line. Thus whatever Messrs Nelson Bros, offered was declined, and no attempt was made by the Commissioners to meet them half way. It is alleged that the Gear Company, which is a rival frozen meat exporting firm, has received from the Commissioners exceptionally good terms, on wbich the Woodville Examiner comments as follows:

" We looked for soma connection between the Commissioners and the Qear Company. We have found it!—within ihe eompaDy'd shire register. Here it is : —Chief Rail way Commissioner McKerrow, 145 shares, on which 803 per share are pdd op! Comraiaßioner Maxwell, 80 shares, oo which 80s per share are paid tip ! The selling price of these shares is quoted at £5 10s, eo they represent £1240 of paid-up interest iD the Gear Company !" Now this is a terribly serious charge, and we notice that a large number of papers regard it as such. The charge made by the Woodviile Examiner simply amounts to saying that Messrs McKerrow and Maxwell are making use of public property entrusted to their care to favor a firm in which they are largely interested, and to handicap a rival firm. We wish it to be understood that we do not make this charge—we only reproduce it as it appeared in other papers—but we regard it as an extremely grave affair, which demands an immediate explanation from those affected by it. If the charge is true, Messrs McKerrow and Maxwell ought to be dismissed at a moment's notice, as men who would do things of this kind in one instance would do it in every instance when it suited them. If Messrs McKerrow and Maxwell treat the charge with contempt, we hope Parliament will not do so. In fact, we feel sure it will not, and that more will be heard of it before long.

THE NEW ORLEANS OUTRAGE. New Obleans, in America, appears to be a warm place. Some months ago an officer of police named Henoessy was shot dead there as he was entering his own house. He was a most energetic and capable officer, and had intimated his intention to stamp out a secret society called the Mafia, which existed in the place, and which was suspected of having committed several murders. The Mafia is a sort of tradesunion society composed of Sicilian and Italian laborers, and its object is to protect its own interests. According to rumor they had a rough and ready way of doing it, by murdering any of the members who infringed the rules as well as others who showed any antagonism to them. The Mafia was a terror to the place, and Mr Hennessy declared his intention to put it down, with the result that he went down instead. Suspicion rested on certain members of the society, and th6y were arrested, tried, and acquitted by the jury. This did not please the inhabitants of the city of New Orleans, and so they resorted to the old method of lynch law, and disposed of the prisoners at once. The excuse they give is that the jury were bribed, and that consequently there had been a miscarriage of justice; but it is more probable that the jury were afraid of the Mafia. A late cablegram informs us that the Mayor has come out as an apologist for the promoterj of the outrage, and that Americans as a whole sympathise with them, while the foreman of the jury had to clear out of the city. On the other hand, the Emperor of Italy, whose subjects the Sicilians are, has demanded an explanation from Mr Blaine, the Secretary of the United States. This ■ places Mr Blaine in an awkward fix. On one hand, he cannot in his explanation to the Italian Emperor justify the fearful outrage the people of New Orleans have been guilty of, and, on the other, he will do a most unpopular thing if he prosecutes the lynchers. Doubtless a sham trial will be got up to punish the lynchers; the jury will acquit them, and then will this satisfy His Italian Majesty ? It appears ta us that he will haye to be satisfied with it, for it is not likely the lynchers will be punished in the face of the universal sympathy felt for them. We are blessed in living under auspices under which outrages of this nature never occur,