The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning. Tuesday, July 18, 1889. ANOTHER TE KOOTI SCANDAL.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 325, 16 July 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, July 18, 1889. ANOTHER TE KOOTI SCANDAL.

Be j list and fear not; Let all the ends thou aini’st at be thy country's, Thy God's, and truth’s.

Probably if an enquiry is held into the conduct of certain parties during the recent Te Kooti campaign more dis. closures than even we anticipated may be brought to light. Certainly we could not, without sufficient evidence in the affirmative, have believed it to be true that some of the Opotiki people have been treated in the peculiar manner of which they complain. In the Opotiki Herald of July i the following article appears:— The manner in which the Defence Depart, meet and their officers are treating the business people here is vexatious and annoying. The East Coast Hussars and the Ngatiporou arrived here about the latter end of February last, under the command of Major Porter; on the earns day Auckland Volunteers and Permanent Artillery arrived. Forage, stores, farrying, paddooklng, horse hire—altogether a number of accounts were contracted with the sanction of the officers and in the name of the Government, and many of them are still lying unpaid. Four months have elapsed since their numerous applications were made, but all to no pur. pose. One business firm, annoyed at the nontinuous delay and neglect, wired to Sergeant Major Colbourns, of Gieborne, and his reply was " Wire Major Porter) be has money to pay aocounts." So they wired to Major Porter, and waited for several days, but no reply cams. Then they wired to the Hon. Mr Mitcbelsqn, Defence Minister, and his reply was *No voucher has ever been received by the Defence Department for goods supplied by you. Major Porter will ba communicated with on the subject." Major Porter no doubt was communicated with, for bis reply came the same day, 11th June, “ Expeditionary accounts not yet closed; your cheque remitted soon." But the cheque has not come to hand yet. The statement that no voucher had been for warded was incorrect, for the voucher had been forwarded, and ql| the items for forage struck out, for what reason no one knows. The unpaid accounts are as follows:—Mr Reece, £7 4s j Mosers Abbot and White, £4 10s i Mr J. McCready, £4l Mr E, Parkinson, £4 8s j Mr‘A, j. Sisam, JBII. It it now over four months since these liabilities wore Incurred, and not even are they aot paid, bub ths people cannot gat a satisfactory answer telling them when they will be paid. This it a question we hope to tee one member take up, and make a searching enquiry into the cause of the delay, and have the accounts settled at once. Any supplies Te Kooti got when he was hero he paid for like a man.

On perusing the above one would naturally think that some blame attaches to the officers in this district, and to Sergeant-Major Colbourne particularly, but a little enquiry soon assured us that the Qisborne officers are in no way responsible for the extraordinary state of affairs, On asking Colbourne what was the position of things, he informed us that the accounts were forwarded to Wellington in due course, but were not recognised by the

Government, as in them each man was allowed three shillings a day for forage, etc. So to meet the accounts for forage the troop (Hussars) agreed to deduct ios from each trooper’s pay, the total amount thus obtained being /31 3s, more than enough to meet the liabilities. The amounts were deducted, as agreed upon, and the money was left in Major Porter’s hands. After the Gisborne men had been paid, Sergeant-Major Colbourne asked Major Porter for a cheque, saying that he wanted to send it to Opotiki by first opportunity. Major Porter said he would give him the cheque on his return from Wellington, but SergeantMajor Colbourne has not received it yet, and he is quite as much annoyed about it as the Opotiki people can be, as it places him in a most unjust position. Now, we want to know who is to blame for this scandalous procedure. We have not much doubt that it is Major Porter, but just to reduce matters to a positive certainty, we hope that Mr Graham will join with Mr Kelly, and have the affair sifted in the House. We do not wish to impute dishonesty to Major Porter, but there is no doubt he has not done his duty well in this matter. Perhaps that is not so much after all ; for certain incidents which occurred during the campaign—and for faithfully reporting which a member of our staff was publicly stigmatised as a liar—have caused our faith in Major Porter to completely vanish, and we no longer wonder that there are many complaints as to the organisation of the public service.

Then there is another point which might well be cleared up. How much was a certain officer getting a day during the time he was in the local Supreme Court, an interested spectator in the Haira te Peri murder case ?—or did he get paid during the time he was in Court? Is it not a fact that any Gisborne accountant would have done, for a few pounds, everything necessary in the way of adjusting accounts. Not being favored with a knowledge of the official documents, we are not in a position to say accurately what rate of pay was awarded to this officer, but it would be very interesting to have •a little light thrown on these matters. Again, we must express a hope that an enquiry will be instituted into the whole business, for when these little things leak out, the public—those who have to pay the,piper—are naturally apprehensive that the worst has not been heard,