The Evening Star FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3944, 15 October 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1875.

Tnu Committee appointed to inquire into the Piako-Waikato Swamp Land Title has reported. Wo cannot say we admire the style of the report, which reads rather more like placing the question before the country on the ground cf expediency than of merely giving a detail of facts. Parliamentary Committees often fall into this fault, unconsciously no doubt, but singularly enough most commonly with a decided leaning towards party. In the present instance, although the intentions of those whofirst moved in the matter were evidently to damage the Government of the day by endeavoring to fix upon Ministers the imputation of deliberate sanction of and participation in an underhand transaction, they have failed ; but disclosures have resulted tending to show the abominable practices by which landed property has been acquired in the North Island. We have always insisted upon these being at the very root of the Native wars, and of the consequent expenses to which the Middle Island has been subjected in sustaining the doings of North Island land shark’s. The wrong-doing is not a transaction of yesterday ; it is a thing of the far past, and the evidence taken by* Ihe Committee is traditionary, .How many were mixed up with the dirty transaction does nob appear , but. one virtuous man says he rais ed his voice against it repeatedly, an el on every “ suitable occasion ” urg‘ fxl the Government to annul

the grant." What the “ suitable v occasions "wei-e does not transpire. .Possibly— very possibly—when it suited the witness to endeavor to damage the Ministry. Tho determination of the present Government to have the whole aflair probed to the bottom has deprived '■he Opposition of a rod that was intended to be held over their heads to fiighten them. Whether or not the arrangements with Mr Russell and Ins partners were judicious, or even advisable, is another point—the Government may or may not be open to blame regarding them. The gist of tho report is sixteen or more years ago, possession of the swamp was obtained by fraud; that there were other persons who were as unscrupulous as the swindler, and who endeavoured to jockey him out of it j that, proving profitless, it was abandoned; that it was re-occupied ■by the Natives in 1860 • that • four years since, on misrepresentation, it was brought under the provisions of the Land Transfer Act by certain persons claiming to have an interest in it, and that in November, 1871, a certificate of title was granted to Mr Thomas Russell, whose name does not previously appear in the transactions. These are the facts as disclosed to tho Committee, ihe conclusion at which they have arrived is not that the property, having been acquired by fraud, should in justice revert to the original proprietors or their representatives ; but that, as six years have not elapsed since the certificate of title was issued, the insurance fund of the Land Transfer Department may be called upon to pay heavy penalties for a wrongful grant of title. The Committee do not ignore tho right to the property the Natives clearly have on their own showing, .but they somewhat unpleasantly put it more in the light of expediency than justice. They place the consequences of refusal to restore, prominently in the foreground, and put the Natives behind as a sort of bugbear, likely to make themselves very unpleasant if put up to the law on the matter. At the same time, we agree with the recommendations of the Committee that the Government should interfere so far that no transfer of the property shall be made—at least until equitable arrangements are entered into with the rightful owners of the land—and that the country will not be satisfied to permit so glaring a transaction to rest without further proceedings. The revelations made from time to time point pretty clearly to the reasons »why the colonists of the North Island sought the sanction of the Native Lands Purchase Act to make private bargains, to the destruction of Northern Provincial revenues, and the fomenting of Maori wars. There was weakness and want of foresight, on the part of the members of Middle island constituencies in consenting to so flagrant a breach of the Compact of 1856. Unfortunately, they have never been remarkable, as a body, for perceiving their own or their constituencies’ interests clearly, or they would never have consented to it; but in the face of transactions so barefaced as those connected with the PiakoWaikato Swamp they cannot wonder that there are Northern advocates for repudiating that Compact, and appropriating Southern Provincial revenues to Northern needs. It must not bo forgotten that among those who put forward a claim to pur land revenue are Sir George Grey, Mr Reader Wood, and other member's of the Opposition, nor that they appear to have known tho history of the swamp swindle, but kept .it snug until they used it for party purposes.