The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1910. MR "E. A. SMITH.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2718, 25 January 1910, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1910. MR " E. A. SMITH.”

A number of people have begun to wonder who the gentleman is who has been responsible for 'a good deal of discussion in political circles recently. For some little time past Opposition newspapers have been seeking information on the matter, but it has required the utmost persistence to induce the Premier to make an explanation. Meanwhile we had been permitted to believe all sorts of shocking things. Visions of some person or persons in London drawing a tidy little fortune from the taxpayers under cover of the convenient if somewhat common name of ‘‘Smith'’ floated across the political horizon, in sihort a “scandal in the High Commissioner’s office” seemed to be about to bo unearthed. Sir Joseph Ward’s explanation. to settle such unpleasant forebodings, although we shall feel more satisfied when the fuller details promised come to hand. In the meantime it seems clear that the Government stands convicted of having been extremely unbusinesslike in regard to the arrangements made for shipping immigrants to the Dominion. Surely one might have expected that with thousands of passages being paid every year the High Commissioner’s Office would have arranged the very best terms that could be secured. Instead we find that a firm trading as Mr “E. A. Smith” has been booking all the passages and has been getting, a commission on each. The net result has been that this concern has been practically kept in existence, employing a staff of 13 clerks, on the commissions thus obtained. The position is not made any the more wholesome by the fact that for some time past the name of Mr. “E. A. Smith” has been a misnomer, that gentleman having been deceased for several years, and the chief of the firm »has been a son of Sir Waltef Kennaway, who was until lately the chief of the High ‘Commissioner’s office. Thus, with the firm of “E. A. Smith” snugly ensconced in the same building as that containing the High Commissioner’s offices quite a happy little family party existed on the operations of New Zealand’s immigration policy. The Premier expresses ignorance in regard to certain facts of the position, but really there is no excuse for this lack of knowledge. This is not the first time the Government has been asked too look into the arrangements between the 'High Commissioner’s office and Mr. E. A. Smith. Some seventeen months ago the Hon T. K. Macdonald moved in / tlie Legislative Council, for a return, showing the amount paid annually by the New Zealand Government during {(lie previous five years for freight, passages, etc., between the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and “giving full information as to the commission allowed in connection with all shipping transactions with a. firm known as E. A. Smith.” Tihe Hon. Dr Findlay, *‘n -c----plv, said that the. return asked for would involve a good deal of time and labor, and for that reason the Government could not see their way to supply it The Hon," Mr. McDonald, in He

course of a further statement, expressed his anxiety to ‘‘avoid making any reference which would in the least degree import into the debate matters of a personal or disagreeable Character,” and withdrew his motion, stating that he would “re-introduce it in a scries of definite propositions, so that the Attorney-General and the Government would know exactly what ho meant and what he thought was going wrong.” It is unfortunate that the Government did nofc on that occasion go fully into the matter and give the* information asked for. The Prime Minister now falls back on the statement that if the “Smith linn” had not received the commission some one else would. Precisely, but that someone •else need not have been another firm, it could have been the Government. It is proven now that the shipping companies are quite willing to pay the commissions to the High Commissioner’s office direct; therfore it is to be presumed they would have done so all along. It is satisfactory to know that for the future Mr T. E. Donne and other Government officials will attend to this aspect of our immigration policy, and that any rebates will, come hack to the people who pay the money. At the same time the facts that have come to light cannot but emphasise the feeling that was demonstrated in Parliament last session, namely, that the High Commissioner’s office requires much closer supervision than it has received in the past. According to the correspondent of the Christchurch “Press” “there is room lor the Government to go further in the way of saving money without impairing efficiency. At present a firm of engineers occupying offices in Id Victoria street ,is paid an inspect.on commission upon every pound’s worth of material purchased here for the Government, including thousands of pounds worth of stores for the Railway and Public Works Department. By appointing one or more of its own engineers to the staff in Victoria street, at a cost of even £IOOO or upwards, a great saving could be effected in this department.”