The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, SEPT 18, 1889. The Case of Ida Prince.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3312, 18 September 1889, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, SEPT 18, 1889. The Case of Ida Prince.

Among the reports which wero laid on tho table of the House of Beprosentatives at tlio tail ond of the session, was ono from the Public Petitions Committee upon the petition of Ida Prince, the circumstances surrounding which aro of such an extraordinary nature that the whole subject is pretty certain to be brought up for debate next Session, The petition sets forth that a letter containing her Government bank book in which a sum of £3OO appeared to her credit, together with a letter of instructions from her guardian, Mr Livingston, were entrusted to Mr Salmon, an employe in the Blenheim post office, for delivery to her in case of Mr Livingston's death, Upon that death occurring, Mr Salmon iminodiutoly pot-ted tho papers received to the petitioner's address, in care of Mr Kirkcaldie, Wellington, where they wero delivered to Mr Kirkcaldie. Immediately afterwards they were, however, asked for by Mr Hoggard, the Chief Clerk in the Wellington Post Cilice, and that gentleman, having obtained them, delivered them to Mr Roso, tlio Inspector, from whose hands they passed into tho hands of Mrs Eose, who, with others, perused the letter, which was intended only for Her (thepetitioner's) own eyes, and iias since then kept possession of it, The report of the Committee is as follows; " 1. That, in the opinion of the Committce,none of theinaterial allegations contained in the petition have been sustained by the evidence adduced. 2. That the action of the postal officers, Messrs Bose, Hoggard, and Salmon was no infraction of the spirit of the regulations, which direct that means should be taken to secure the delivery of lett6i'3 to those persons to whom they are addressed. 8. That Mrs Pose's conduct in connection with petitioner has been of a most commendable character, and that she was actuated by benevolent motives, netingsolely ia the interests of petitioner. 4. That petitioner failed to account satisfactorily to the Committee for her non-acoeptance of MrsEose's offer of the 27th February,to appoint a trustee other than Mrs Pose. 5. That petitioner has no grounds of complaint." It is not a little pulling how any Parliamentary Committee could have had the hardihood to bring up such, a documont, and those membors who | denounced it desesvp great credit for the stand they took. The statement that none of the material allegations have been sustained by the evidence is, on tho face of it, very far away from the facts, because the petition does not contain a more important allegation than the ono that tho papers addressed to the petitioner had been allowed to pass into the hands of Mrs Koso, a person who is

not in any way cornice ed with the Post Oftico Department. That sacli a thing did take place, is fully borno out by the report itself, tho fourth, paragraph of which even praises Mrs Eose for her efforts to appoint a trustee for the petitioner, and, inforontially, for having tried to net in that capacity herself. If the report of the (bmmittce is reasonable, then the laws regulating the Post Office Department are in a most unsatisfactory state, because under them any officer can carry away a private letter, allow others to peruse it and retain possession of it, with the probablo result that tho person who would, under other circumstanses, be considered guilty of larceny might actually earn .tho thanks of Parliament for his conduct, We do not profess to know anything of Ida Prince, the petitioner, who is probably a minor; nor do we know Mrs Rose, who is, no doubt, an estimable lady, bat whose name should never havo been introduced at all. There i 3 nothing whatever in the Post Office Act, or in any statute in force in New Zealand, that permits an officer of the Department, from the Postmaster-General downwards, to take a letter out of tho post office except for the purpose of delivering it to the person to whom it is addressed. If Mr Koso had reason to believe that Ida Prince was not a person who should be entrusted with the care of her .'own money, his proper course was to acquaint the Public Trusteo with the circumstances. Any interference beyond that was clearly outside the pale of his duties, however benevolently he and his lady might have been inclined. Nay, we go further, and say that it was an infraction of his duties, on Mr Rose's part, to communicate with his wife on tho subject at all. We have yet to deal with section 2 of tho report, which gravely states that the action of tlio postal officers was no infraction of the spirit of tho regulations, "which direct that means should be ta-ken to secure the delivery of letters to those persons to whom they are addressed." That is to say, the postal officers received a letter addressed to Miss Ida Princo, care of Mr Kirkcaldie, and then fetched it back again and passed it on to Mrs Rose, who, according to the logical reading of tho clause, must bo Ida Prince, the person to whom it was addressed, unless, indeed the act of purposely getting a letter away from its proper address, and passing it oil to other persons must be taken to come within the meaning of tbo words " to secure the delivery of letters to those persons to whom they aro addressed." The report does not state whether Mrs Eose has assumed the management of Miss Prince's property ornot; buttheinferonce is that she has, and if that is correct, that she will continue to manage it until it has been shown that she has no right in it. That is, however, a mere side issue. The main question is, whether a postal officer has a right to tako correspondence plainly addressed, and hand it to persons other than the addressee; and that, wo venture to think, will yet be answered so emphatically in the negativo as to cause a return of the feeling of public security which lias been so rudely disturbed.