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Globe, Volume VI, Issue 632, 28 June 1876, Page 2

The Piako Swamp debate has terminated, as was expected, in a thorough triumph for Ministers. By a majority of 51 to 19 the House last night carried Sir Julius Vogel’s resolution, “that this House will not “ interfere to prevent the issue, in the “ ordinary course, of the Crown Grants for “ the Piako Swamp.” The Opposition have utterly failed to prove those charges of corruption and. favouritism so freely used during the debate. They have not succeeded even in showing the transaction to have been an administrative blunder. Speaker after speaker, and those especially best acquainted with the circumstances of the case, have defended the sale as most beneficial to the interests of the district, and as an excellent bargain for the Colony. The swamp can only be rendered fit for- settlement by the Previous expenditure of a very large sum of money, which the Government would not have been justified in undertaking. Of course the purchasers hope to make the speculation pay or they would not have entered into it, but no reliable facts have been laid before the House to show that they ’are certain to make a large sum out of the transaction. Its result is at present entirely in the region of speculation, and as such, the drainage of the swamp does not belong to that class of works which should be taken in hand by the Government. The result of the debate will be to weaken more than ever the influence of Sir George Grey and his party in the House. The charges which were so freely hurled at ministers, by the leaders of the Opposition, in the course of the debate, have been shown to be so thoroughly’groundless, that it will be difficult to persuade the House and the country to listen to their arguments and assertionsin, the future.