MR SUTTON.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1732, 10 July 1884, Page 2

MR SUTTON.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Kindly allow me spaca to place before your readers, as briefly as I can, the facts of Mr Sutton's caso so far as tliey aro linowa to me,

Mr Sutton has chosen to impute to me unworthy personal motives for snoh action as I took in roferouce to this matter, and he has asserted that Mr Beotham and myself, as the representatives of the distriot, hounded him out of his office and secured hiß_ dismissal, Tbe main ground upon which he makes such an accusation is, that he opened the Whareama district, which had previously been closed on account of scab, while we wanted to.keep it closed in order to enhance the price of our Btock by restricting to the remainder of the district the supply of sheep to the local and Wellington markets, Now, supposing Whareama had been kept shut, .would that have inoreased the value of sheep in the Southern district? Certainly not, because the numn bet produced would still, together with West Coast supplies, haye been far in excess of local and Wellington consumption, and prices would consequently still have been strictly ruled by the London market rates of tallow and tinned and frozen meats. Indeed, it is easy to show that restriction of supply up to any pninfc short of the actual local consumption would lower prices instead of raising them. There are three meat companies in Wellington whose plant for freezing, tinning, &0., is frequently idle for want of supplies. Full work for them would obviously imply a great cheapening in the cost of manipulation, which at present falls so heavily on the producer. Let me, however, add a fact or two to show that my practice has been strictly in accordance with my theory. For tho twelve months cndin° about February, 18R4, I disposed of no fat sheep whatever in the Wellington market, but sent everything direct to the London market, and so far from assisting to closs the Whareama district, it is a matter of history that in conjunction with Mr Levin, I waited on the Government and urged them to allow a large number of sheep belougmg to the Gear Company and sevenl settler.-)" which had been stopped by the Inspector on their road from the Coast, to pass through to Wellington, iEit could be found at alfpossible to ensure reasonable safety to the clean portions of the district, This request was eventually conceded by the Government, and the Whareama district is now, I am glad to say, perfectly open, with tho exception of tlie list of three remaining scabby rbeks aggregating under 25,000 sheep, to which the previously formidable one of 12 flocks, numbering 170,000, has now been reduced. I think these statements wdl conclusively prove to your leaders that tho unworthy personal motives which Mr Sutton has attributed to me existed only in his own imagination. Let me now carry your ' readers back to a special public meeting on the scab question held in Carterton, if I recollect rightly, in 1881, Mr Sutton's appointment was one of tho renlts of the representations made of tho urgent necessity of more energetic. measures boiii£ taken to eradicato soab Loin the District. Mr Sutton will bear me witness that a few days after his arrival in tho district I offered to be of any assistauco to him that I possibly could in tho carrying out of his admittedly difficult duties. I therefort ask him to exempt me from the list of those of whom he makes the assertion that they thwarted instead of assistim' hiin. Some two years or more after Mr Sutton's appointment I was asked by several settlers at a public meeting which was being held iu Masterton on the freezing question, again to call public attention to the fact of no progress having been made in the eradication of scab, and to call upon the Government to find a romedy, Statistics then quoted and since reprinted in your paper conclusively proved the facts then announced, and also the justness of our fears that the flocks in the district were actually in a much more alarming state than was disclosed by the returns published in the Gazette. The number then ou the infected list was 51810 but three months later the number had' run up to 91,240, and three months later still to 172,193. It has been stated by the way that tho meeting being called to discuss the freezing question had no right to discms the scab question, and was therefore open to the reputation of being a hole and corner one, I admit it would have been better if a special meeting could have been called, or if Mr Stuckey in framing the advertisement hail alluded to the scab question, but noither Mr Stuckey nor any member of the meeting was guilty of any hole and corner business. It was a public matter discussed in a public hall and fully reported to the Press, A committee wa3 appointed to prepare, a report and recommendations for transmission to the Government, and it has been alleged that it was an unfairly constituted committee and that the names had been privately pre-arranged, I know nothing of that nor do I behevo it. As a matter of faot which is on reaord I personally expressed the hope that the infected districts would be represented on the Committee and the names of Messrs Maunsell Mackay. Meredith, Handysides, ami Donald-men all ia the heart of the infected district, give ample proof that the infected distriot was well represented in a committee composed of onlyseveo members, The recommendations of the Committee you have already republished, so that I need not say anything about them except to remark that the principle one of them-tho appointment of Mr Drummond-has resulted in a reduction of scab to a limit which encoura"os the hope that we shall 3oon see a clean bill of health throughout the whole district. I now come to the representations which Mr Beetham aud myself are charged with having made against Mr Sutton in Wellington. I certainly considered it my duty as °a settler and as one of the representatives of the district to urge the Government to adopt such energetic measures as would ensuro what the district had a right to expect, namely, the speedy clearance of the district, but I strictly confined myself to the general tenor of statements which I made at this public meeting referred to, I repeatedly requested Mr Bailey, the Chief Inspeotor to visit and inspect tho district, so that he might judge for himself whether the complaints which the settlers had requested me to make of increase of soab were justified or not. Mr Bailey did visit the district and did inspect it, and the result of his inspection was that the Colonial Secretary, as head of the Sheep Department, intimated to Mr Sutton his intention of transferrin" him to Nelson. Mr Sutton asserts that he was requested by the Chief Inspector te attend in Masterton an enquiry which Mr Bayley would make iu conjunction with Mr Beetham aud myself, and that at the appointed time Mr Beetham and I declined to prefer any charge against him, and the enquiry fell through. In this assertion there is a grain of truth, which however, does not disclose the roal facts. In the first place I had never made any complaint of Mr Sutton's incaprcityor mismanagement other than what I have mentioned, and in ths second place I deolined to take any share in a departmental enquiry, for representations having been made to the Government that scab was on the increase, and that the endeavors whioh the Government at the request of the settlers had initiated more than two years previously had not attained the desired results, it was the duty of the Dopartment to prosecute an enquiry for the cause of the failure of those measures. . I may mention that in conversation with Mr Bailey a few days ago ho admitted that he had no authority from me for informing Mr Sutton that I would take part in any such enquiry as Mr Sutton has referred to,-

Mr Sutton, in vindication o- his oharaotor, has declared that the Colonial Secretary, Mr Dick, informed him that the Department, had no charge to bring forward against him but that the momberfl for tho district desired his removal. What may have pissed between Mr Sntton and Mr Diok I am uuable to say, but Mr Sutton's statement is entirely at variance with Mr Diok's telegram to Mr Bsetham published in your issue of Tuesday, and which I leave to your readers'consideration, I repeat that the above are the actual facts of the case as far as I am concerned, and that in representing to headquarters the feelings of the settlers on the serious question of scab, I did but my duty as a settler and the representative of those settlers, and if any blame attaches to mo for such action I am quite prepared to accept it. I will now leave it to your readers to judge whother Mr Sutton has any grounds for making his wild accusations, and to say whether my action in this matter as a representative of tho district oan by any show of fairness be construed into tho base , and underhanded proceedings which he has 'attributed to me. Of the fairness of his present proceedings I will Bay nothing beyond this, that it is, to say the least, & curious and instructive spectacle to see an individual with a grievance airing that grievance at first one political meeting and then another with the full determination to damage the candidates by his ont-and-dried statement of fancied wrongs. I am, etc., W. C. Bochanan,