In a six-part series, Mike Houlahan looks back at how the Otago Daily Times covered burning issues of yesteryear. Today he looks at when the newspaper itself was in the spotlight.
Charles Houghton Mills was brought up in the justice system - his father was the governor of Wellington Prison during the 1850s.
Young Charles went to sea, chased a fortune in the gold fields and then turned to farming, before setting up as a commission agent in the Marlborough town of Havelock.
Sixteen years later, in 1887, Mills developed a taste for politics and - unsuccessfully - stood for the Liberals in the Waimea-Picton electorate. Undeterred he stood again in 1890 and this time won: he held the seat, soon to be renamed Wairau, until 1908.
With Richard Seddon elected prime minister in 1893, Mills was in the right party at the same time. He was made senior whip the following year, marking him out as a man destined for higher honours.
Charles Mills and the Otago Daily Times crossed paths in 1897, when Mills - affronted by a story which alleged the MP had had a police constable, John Jeffries, transferred to another district because he had not voted for him - sued for defamation.
The story had originated from the Manawatu Standard and the ODT’s Wellington correspondent Malcolm Ross had picked up on it and sent his version southwards, where it ran in the Otago Witness - a paper in the same ownership as the ODT.
Hence, for the hearing in Blenheim in November 1897, the ODT brought in the big guns: its lawyer was Sir Robert Stout, twice prime minister of New Zealand and a year away from being named the fourth Chief Justice of New Zealand.
Jeffries cut a sympathetic figure in the witness box: in his late 50s, 16 stone and married with children, the court was told that being transferred from Wairau to Takaka not only devastated his family, but also resulted in a considerable drop in his income.
The previous year Mills had asked Jeffries if he would support him in the 1896 election, only to be told no. Soon after Mills complained that Jeffries had wrongly struck seven names off the electoral roll, a complaint which was dismissed after an internal inquiry.
Mills returned to Wellington and soon afterwards came the news that Constable Jeffries was to be transferred: the Manawatu Standard reported that suspicious minds had leapt to the conclusion that something fishy had happened, as did the Witness and Press.
Maybe it did, maybe it didn’t - certainly two juries could not make up their minds.
The jury in the ODT case awarded Mills £150 in damages and £69 costs, while The Press was awarded costs of £150.
However, the saga did not end there. A disgruntled Mills now had a taste for litigation and did what many an embittered plaintiff wishes they could do - he sued his lawyers for negligence for not winning the case against The Press as well, and for more of the money paid out by the ODT as he felt the lawyers had claimed too high a portion for their expenses.
It emerged during this trial that Mills and his lawyers had formed a syndicate to sue the newspapers - Justice Denniston, presiding, showed his contempt for the arrangement by calling it ‘‘the discreditable bargain’’ in his judgement.
After ripping into both sides, his Honour decided the only fair thing to do was to throw Mills’ case out, but also to refuse costs to the defendants.
Although Mills was presumably much out of pocket after three hearings, none of this seemed to do his political career any harm. He was Minister of Trade and Customs between 1900-06, and Minister of Immigration in 1906.
He did not stand in 1908 election, becoming a member of the Legislative Council and serving from 1909-16. He died in 1923.
