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rounded as I was by the influences of Ministerial intrigue, I should have laid myself open to the imputation that I was anxious to get rid of him for other reasons. He was a witness in the Junction Brewery case. I therefore left it to the Premier's sense of propriety to deal with him. I daily expected to hear of his dismissal by the Premier ; but Jackman knew he was in safe hands. It is impossible to conceive that he would have dared to make such a charge against a Minister of the Crown but for the existence of some strong support from an undisclosed source. Emboldened by a knowledge of the strength of his position, he forwarded the following further communication to the Premier:—■ « Sic,— " Customs, Wellington, 7th March, 1889. _ " I beg very respectfully to make an appeal to you against what I feel to be the unjust " and believe to be the unconstitutional conduct of the Hon. George Fisher, Esq., the Commissioner " of Trade and Customs, in suspending me from duty because, while employed in the execution of " my duties as an officer of Customs, I wrote a charge against himself to the Secretary of Customs, " and served him, the Hon. George Fisher, with a copy of the same. The printed instructions " issued to me for my guidance say, ' You are not to do or suffer to be done, abet, or conceal any " act or thing prejudicial to the revenue' —there being no exception made to any one on account of "the position, public or private, which the parties concerned may hold. That it is not reasonable " to infer that an officer of twenty-six years standing, and who, it must be admitted, has never had "to retract a single case of the many cases of fraud which he has reported, should now so far " forget himself as to make a charge, however slight or serious, without being able to maintain it, •' and especially against one who holds the position of the Commissioner of Trade and Customs. " I beg respectfully to state that I have not found in the printed instructions directions as to " how to proceed under present circumstances, and therefore take the liberty of appealing to you. " I have, &c, " S. J. Jackman, " Officer of Customs (under suspension). - "-TheHon. the Premier, Sir H. Atkinson, K.C.M.G. " Name in full: Samuel James Jackman, No. 2, Kent Villa, Kent Terrace, Wellington." As to retracting charges, this man has been reprimanded and censured by every Commissioner of Customs and every Collector under whom he has served. The office-file of papers relating to him sufficiently shows what his character is. Now, will it be believed that from the date of that letter, the 7th March, that man was in daily direct personal communication with the Premier, became almost his confidential adviser, and is still retained in the service of the Government! I leave this matter to the judgment of the Parliament and the public ; and I also, sir, leave it to others to say whether your conduct or mine is the more scandalous. (G.) As to the eight large questions upon which I differed with the Cabinet, I am glad to learn that you confirm my statement that I on all occasions deferentially submitted to the decision of the Cabinet, because it confirms my former remark that you always gave me credit for great courtesy and forbearance; and it refutes a common and erroneous impression that I am "the " impracticable man," with whom nobody can agree. Your testimony upon this point is valuable to me. But again I say I differed with the Cabinet upon the following questions : — (1.) The Eailway Board. —You say I was in favour of the appointment of an English expert, as were most of the " Cabinet." There you are in error. Most of the Cabinet were not in favour of the appointment of an English expert. In Cabinet I proposed the appointment of Mr. Eec as Chief Commissioner of Eailways. Only two members of the Cabinet voted for the motion—namely, the Hon. Mr. Mitchelson and myself. The peculiar treatment of Mr. Eec to which I referred was the constant disparagement of him by certain members of the Cabinet, the object of the disparagement being obvious, although the Government had at the time in its possession documents which showed that he was a most capable man, and in every respect fitted for the position of Chief Commissioner of Eailways. Having a full knowledge of the contents of those documents—for they arrived from England, and were in your possession a month and a half before you spoke—your references to Mr. Eec in your speech at Hawera on the 28th January were unworthy of any person pretending to the standing of a statesman. (2.) You pass over the matter of the appointment of the Judge with supercilious brevity and affected indifference. No doubt it is with you a tender subject, to be disposed of with all possible celerity. You say that after the appointment was made I never said anything further about the matter. That is quite true. We were all so heartily sick of the vacillating indecision of certain members of the Cabinet, and of the ungentlemanly and unfeeling language of two particular members of the Cabinet, that no one cared or dared to refer to the subject again. The use of this unfeeling language, and the overbearing manner of its authors, marks the date of the beginning of the disruption of the Cabinet. Surely you do not tell me that you have forgotton all this. (3.) You speak of the appointment of an Engineer-in-Ohief, or of " some such appointment," to which one of two persons was to be promoted. The two persons are very well known, situation at different times in regard to this matter became most ludicrous. For instance, the two members of the Cabinet who fought most strenuously for the appointment of a particular one of the two persons were gentlemen whom I had heard a dozen times say that that particular person was a person who should be "sacked" out of the service of the country. These contrarieties or variations in the character of the human mind puzzled and amused me. The question I asked you to submit to Cabinet was, " Does the colony require the services of these two gentleman? " You changed the issue. You put this question: "Are the services of these two gentlemen to be "retained?" And it was resolved in the affirmative. I am willing to believe you when you say that no appointment has yet been made to the position of Engineer-in-Chief ; for, judging from some past experiences in connection with this matter, I should imagine it would take the Cabinet some