The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1899.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 406, 4 March 1899, Page 2

The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1899.

When we wrote in our issue of Saturday last in reference to the marine certificate scandal the whole of the facts were not before us, and, in consequence, we placed the blame on the shoulders of Captain Allman, the examiner, thinking that he had deceived Mr Hall-Jones as to Captain Jones having satisfactorily passed the prescribed examination and otherwise complied with the law, and that the crime of the Minister was one of omission in not having looked carefully into the matter, rather than one of commission. Facts which have since come to hand alter the complexion of the case very m ater ially. It appears th at Mr Hall-Jones wrote a memorandum, from which a olerk compiled a letter instructing the issue of a certificate, and that the fact that Captaiu Jones had not served the required time at sea as mate, was to be overlooked. In fact, that Captain Jones was to be licensed to take charge of vessels without having served the obviously necessary apprenticeship. As the Minister thought fit to break the law in this respect, it is, unfortuuately for the credit of the colony and its Marine certificates, a fair inference that pressure was put by him upon Captain Allman to pass Captain Jones no matter how small a degree of proficiency he might show, and that the questions and answers which were avowedly written by the examiner were only put in in order to be filed with the other papers and thus give the affair the appearance of regularity. This appears to be the posi • tion so far as we can gleam. There has been a great deal of declamation and violent abuse of Grand Juries by the Premier and assertion that Mr Hall-Jones, had he appeared as a witness, could have cleared his character. There was nothing to have prevented Mr Hall-Jones from causing himself to be called in Captain Allman's case; in fact, in the natural order of things, he should have been oue of the prin> cipal witnesses for the prosecution. The Premier has been at considerable pains to deny that he knew anything of the business, he was not so far as we are aware accused of guilty knowledge. Surely this was very much on the lines of the old French proverb, " qui s'excuse s'accuse." His statement that Grand Juries are always opposed to his administration, is equivalent to saying that the men in the country best able to form an opinion do not approve of much of his policy measures, and are fully alive to the rottenness of his administration.