THE O'CONOR CASE IMPAR TIALLY REVIEWED.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 981, 21 June 1872, Page 2

THE O'CONOR CASE IMPAR TIALLY REVIEWED.

(nelson etening jiaii..) The case that has recently engrossed so large a share of the attention of the Provincial Council and of the public is one that cannot be suffered to pass by uncommented upon by the press. We carefully abstained from expression any opinion whatever on the report of the Select Committee appointed to enquire into the conduct of Mr O'Conor in purchasing the land at "Westport; on the resolution unanimously agreed to by the Council; or on the evidence upon which they were based, until we had an opportunity of carefully perusing the evidence adduced, as well as Mr O'Conor's defence. This we have now done, calmly, dispassionately, and with a mind entirely free from any personal bias either in one direction or the other ; not with a view to seek, ing a justification of the decision arrived at by the Council, but rather in the hope that in the numerous folios of manuscript through which we hare carefully waded we might detect some flaw in the chain of evidence, some i loophole through which the accused party might affect an honorable escape. The matter is pot one which can he disposed of in a few words, but we shall endeavor to put before our readers as briefly as possible tke con. clusion at which''we have arrived, and the grounds upon which it is based. To begin with, then, we may state our full conviction that there is com-. plete proof of Mr O'Conor's having for some time previously contemplated the purchase of the sections, and there is no reason whatever to doubt lis • statement that—however strange and! peculiar may be the coincidence—the telegram put into his hand just at the time when the Committee had deter.] mined upon recommending the with- j drawal of the lands from sale was the j very missive upon the receipt of which depended his ability to become the pur. chaser. The documents of a private nature to which he made such frequent reference, if their purport be only to corroborate this statement, are altogether unnecessary, as he appears to j us to have completely established his j case in this respect without their aid. j All this, however is, to our thinking, j entirely wide of the mark, the real I question at issue being confined within ] the narrowest possible limits. Itj simply amounts to this : was he at the j time he made the purchase cognisant j of the decision that had been arrived 1 at by the Committee, and was such I knowledge acquired by him in an J official capacity? If so, no matter! what were his previous intentions, he I was acting in a manner unbecoming I his position as a member of the Coun- j cil, and he would, consequently, be de« I serving of the severest censure. | In the consideration ef this mate I we have to be guided entirely by the I comparative weight of the evidence! that can be placed in the scales by the 1 accuser and the accused. Let Us see I what this amounts to. On the one I side, we have tho unsupported asser-1 tion of the defendant (for in such a I light we may look upon Mr O'Conor) 1 that he was not in the room when the 1 Committee agreed, either conver-1 sationally or by formal resolution,! upon the desirability of recommending I the "Waste Lands Boards to tempor-1 arily withhold the land for sale. On 9 the other hand, six members of that ■ Committee declare most positively ■ that Mr O'Conor was present, if not ■ at the precise moment at which the ■ resolution was formally passed, at all I events ud to within a very few minute a of that time, and that for some time flB previous to his leaving the room tbeflj subject had been under discussion, and ■ the action to be taken virtually agreed ■ upon. Upon this testimony, theßJ Council was, and the public ste 'M invited to frame their reply to question: Was the decision of tuBJ Committee arrived at in Mr O'ConorJ ■ presence ? So far as wc are able to ■ judge, there can be but one answe r: H It was. Another point then present* ■ itself to the notice of anyone desirous ■ of arriving at a full and completelj knowledge of tho merits of this pam-HJ ful case. Being in tho room, as *?■

If compelled to admit is clearly Eyed to have been the case, did Mr ■Conor hear what was going on ? of the members of the Comittee have declared that, seated lere he was, " he must have heard." lis, however, is but a matter of pinion, and, although possessing conierable weight, it does not show lyond all possibility of doubt that he fa's aware of what was taking place, |d where uncertainty exists there lould be a proportionate hesitation i forming a judgment. But Mr ['Conor himself has clearly and Iplicitly replied to this question. In I clever and most ingenious speech jhich must have enlisted on his side g sympathies of all those of his carers who had not closely examined jefacts, he stated that even if not Btening to what was going on "he iltsure that if the decision to withraw the land from sale was arrived at bilst he was there, it would sufficien--7 striking, as affecting his interests i closely, to attract his attention, and i have forced him to bear what was The next question is, did Mr 'Conor obtain 'his information Bha Committee,, having refused to sit Bppoii it because he was personally so Kterested in the question of compensation to losers by the floods that he Hid not think it proper that he should ct as one of the arbiters in this latter. But, on the other hand, we nd that he fwas in attendance as the nember for "Westport, to advise and rive evidence when called upon to do to. Consequently he was not in the pom as an ordinary or casual visitor, iut in an official capacity. The case appears to us to be made jut only too clearly, and we can find bo room whatever for doubt that at the time Mr O'Conor entered the Land Office for the purpose of securing certain sections in the town of Westport he was fully aware what were the intentions of the Committee with regard to that land, and that he bad arrived at a knowledge of those intentions whilst attending the Committee room in his capacity of member of the Provincial Council for "Westport. . We wish that we could here lay aside our pen, and drop a veil over all that has taken place since the enquiry into this matter was first instituted, but it has assumed another, and to our minds, a far more serious phase in the line of defence that Mr O'Conor has adopted. As we have stated above, jt is on record that Bix members of the Provincial Council have declared that Mr O'Conor was in the Committee room at the time a certain discussion was going on, and when a certain (decision was arrived at,- on the other [hand, Mr O'Coner asserts most positively that he was not present. It follows then, that on one side or the .other, there has been a deliberate departure from the truth. There is .no neutral ground, as it were, on which we can take up our position, and say ; "Well, the weight of evidence is evidently against the accused, but it is possible that he may have been under a mistake in stating that he was not there, as it might have happened that the discussion took place without his hearing it, consequently leaving him under the impression that he had left before it occurred. Mr O'Conor has with his own hands cut away this ground from under our feet by asserting that he could not possibly have been in the room while such a question was being deeided on without being aware of it, his own interests being involved to so great an extent in the decision at which the Committee had arrived as to compel him to hear what was going on. Either then, Mr Kynnersley, Mr Shephard, Mr Barnicoat, Mr Keid, Mr Macmahon, and Mr Tarrant have been guilty of wickedly and wilfully. conspiring together to do Mr O'Conor a grievous wrong, or a deliberate untruth has been told by Mr O'Conor. There is no fencing with the question. If we aequit Mr O'Conor it must be on the grounds that we consider the abovenamed gentlemen to have been guilty of telling a wilful falsehood; if we come to the conclusion that the charge brought against him has been proved then we must convict bim of the additional and far more serious offence of endeavouring to exculpate himself by stating what he knew to be utterly and entirely false. Mr O'Conor's constituents will probably deem it their duty, to thorougly investigate the matter, and it is for them especially to say whether of the two sides is the more deserving of credence. For our own part, painful as it is to have to record such a verdict against one of our public men, we should be shirking our duty did we not express the opinion at which we have arrived after carefully perusing the evidence, and fairly and impartially weighing the whole of the pros and cons that have presented themselves to our minds. That opinion is, that the conduct of Mr O'Conor throughout the whole of this scandalous affair, has been such as to demand the " severest reprobation,', not only of his fellow Councillor's but of the entire New Zealand public.