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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 61

Unmixed Scoundrelism

Unmixed Scoundrelism,

and we ought to exert ourselves to the utmost to get rid of it.

I am very far from saying that the system I propose is the best that can be devised to take its place, but merely that it is the best I can offer, and is the result of very careful study. All I have ever asked is, that its merits and demerits should be inquired into by a competent and impartial commission. When Mr. Richardson led the House to believe that I had asked him "to give it a trial" he stated that which he must have known to be untrue. I did not even ask him for an inquiry, for I felt that I was talking to a prejudiced, incompetent man.

Not only has Mr. Richardson descended to untruth himself, but he has ordered his subordinate to prepare, and he has laid on the table of the House, as an authoritative Government document, a paper which is nothing but a tissue of untruths and misrepresentation throughout. It even contains many gross untruths, as the statement that reductions from 9d. to 6d., from 1s. to 6d., from is. 6d. to 1s., from 3s. 9d. to 1s., are not reductions at all, but are a "heavy increase."

I think that when a private citizen undertakes, without fee or reward, the vast labour and great expense of investigating a subject of this nature, he has at least a right to expect that Ministers will deal fairly, truthfully, and honourably by him.

My language may appear rough; I am fully conscious that it is so; but when a man in the position of a Crown Minister, in his place in Parliament, resorts to direct untruth in order to stifle inquiry into a matter of great public moment, I consider he places himself outside the pale, and that I am quite justified in denouncing him.

The object of Mr. Richardson and Mr. Maxwell in presenting these false statements to the House was to discredit my work by creating an impression that I did not know what I wanted, and was ignorant of my subject, and thus justify themselves in refusing the prayer of the