HON.R M'KENZIE IN THE NORTH

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 454, 12 March 1909, Page 8

HON.R M'KENZIE IN THE NORTH

) SEVERE CRITICISM. (dY TELEGnirn—SrECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) , ■ . ! - Auckland, March 10. A. scathing criticism of the new Minister for Mines and Public Works appears , in the course of a leading articlo in this morning's paper. ,Tho article says:—Mr. R. M'Konzie has displayed an"astonishing lack of sympathy with the north, and an utter inability to grasp the salient features of the various situations with which he has been confronted. Ho goes to Waihi, and promptly commences to threaten one of the greatest of our national industries because tailings are dumped into a stream the valley of which has little agricultural value, and which migkt.be kept open without "great difficulty by the occasional employment of a Government drodgd. The of many hundreds of men, the- distribution of hundreds of thousands' of pounds yearly-in wages, the payirent. of' dividends which encourago gold adventuring not only at Waihi but, on. other fields, seem •to have no weight, in. the rnind-.oi the new Minister for Mines as compared with the agricultural uso of a few inferior'acres, and •this .*■ whilev the Government carefully locks from use-millions of the'most fertile areas ; in the .:north.,"On the Thames ho exhibits the same-cavalier temper, employing his newr 'born' authority to threaten mining companies which" havo' great interests at stake, and great difficulties to contend with, in making arrangements "for developing the low levels. 'At Auckland ;ho -professes to bo ignorant that we-have .any-reason to attach a mining school to our University College In the maitor of tlio Stratford connection, he speaks contemptuously of the claim that works should be carried on at both ,ends, and asks settlers why they need communication with Aucldand when they can send ; their goods to New Plymouth. The extreme probability is that ho is carried away by his sudden elevation 'to office, and has not the intelligenco either to conceal his ignorance 'of the north or to understand that thoro should bo'such a'thing as a consistent and publicspirited Government policy.