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term libellous," and that it was only a year after the charge had been made that I became acquainted with it through pages of the printed Report of the Retrenchment Commission, copies of which had been presented to the Members of Legislative Council and to which the Public Press of the Colony had access.
Having thus become acquainted with this base charge preferred by Mr. Thomson, a charge which I very respectfully submit to Your Lordship would, in unofficial life, have been probably followed by an action for libel. I wrote calling attention thereto and requesting further investigation and that Mr. Thomson be asked on what grounds he based his belief of Corruption.
To this request I received no satisfactory reply. I would specially ask Your Lordship's attention to Harbour Master's letter of 8th October, 1894, Enclosure No. 3.
Mr. Thomson does not in a straightforward manner either repeat or deny having made the Charge, he prefers to adopt a course the nature of which I leave to Your Lordship's verdict, he does not admit having made the statement.
On receiving this unsatisfactory reply from Harbour Master, I asked that the attention of the Chairman of the Retrenchment Commission might be called to the matter, vide Colonial Secretary's letter of 20th October 1894, Enclosure No. 4A.