RESULT OF THE JACKSON'S BAY COMMISSION.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1607, 15 April 1879, Page 3

RESULT OF THE JACKSON'S BAY COMMISSION.

["Grey River Argus."J Mr Edmund Barff, M.H.R. for Hokitika, has decidedly come to grief over the Jackson's Bay Commission. So long as he could indulge in his extravagant style of generalities, and make statements which there was no one to contradict, he was right enough. His utterances found their place in " Hansard," and he achieved a certain amount of reputation, and on the strength of his representations the Colony went to the expense of sending a Royal Commission to enquire into charges which included forgery, falsehood, embezzlement, and other crimes on the part of those responsible for the management of the Jackson's Bay settlement. We stated when the Commission first came down that it would end in smoke, and pointed out that, in the absence of specific charges, dates, and so forth, it was impossible to prove anything to satisfy the public mind. One thing, however, appears to have been proved, and that is that Mr Barff's statements in the House have not been substantiated ; indeed, it may be said further, that some have been found to be incorrect, and for this reason he has been made somewhat of a victim. Mr Barff made a charge that rotten potatoes, bought at a shilling a bag, had been sent down to Jackson's Bay and sold to the settlers as seed potatoes at a high price. And he was right to a certain extent. Seed potatoes were urgently needed, and there were none in the market but a quantity damaged as described, which were picked over carefully, and the best of them forwarded to the settlement. There does not appear to have been anything in the transaction dis creditable to any of the parties concerned in it, as was imputed, and all Mr Barff's particulars pointing in this direction have been proved to be exaggerated, and in some cases untrue. The Commissioners will certainly not spare him in their report, and he is likely to be severely handled in the House when the report comes on for discussion. The Commissioners say that none of the charges against the management of the settlement, contained in the petition presented by Mr Barff, have been proved, and that many settlers signed it in ignorance of its true character, and would not have done so had they been in possession of the true facts of the case. Be this as it may, we conclude that the result of the Commission will be the abandonment by the Government of a scheme of colonisation not only not calculated to be successful under much more favorable circumstances, but which could not hope to prosper under the conditions which have marked its history. Large as is the num of money which this unprofitable experiment has cost, the experience gained may be the meanß of preTttnuug similar blunders in the future.