WAR TO THE KNIFE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 332, 16 July 1875, Page 3

WAR TO THE KNIFE.

" JUDICIAL " VEESUS " LEGISLATIVE." A short time ago, when the members of the Waste Lands Board were engaged in one of those polite wrangles for which the august tribunal to which they allow themselves to be attached has been for some time notable, " Mr. J. OL. Connell, in answer to a question from the Chief Commissioner, said he was waiting until Js£r. Beid brought forward his motion.—Mr. Keid: Then you will not be listened to. —Mr. Connell : Possibly not by you." Mr. Council's clients, who wore prepared to advance their owta case if allowed, have now forced~a position in which they mu?t be listened to, whether they like it or not. What does it all mean ? To the casual reader the newspaper reports present a chaotic confusion and Babel of tongues, written and nnwritten ; and a sudden mingling of inharmonious factors, the principal of which are clearly:—a morose but determined Chief Commissioner, a Government Hotspur, a Don Quixote of Tokomairiro, while even a representative of the immortal Sancho Panza is not wanting. Add to these provisional elements indictments, injunctions, rules nisi; what can be made of it all ? Yet the position is not a very knotty one in its elementary features. Any question of administration under statute becomes abstruse when disputed in the law courts ; but the special cases now being considered »re by no means cases of exceptional difficulty. Our Provincial Government' will have an opportunity to see how it likes the remedy "judicial," when applied to an administrative statute — found defective in administrative expression—which it fondly watches over with all the fervor and anxiety of parentage. Already, before the cases in dispute are so'much as argued, Judge and counsel are discussing the chances of time being available for a possible 'appeal to the legislative. Clearly the judicial is mistrusted when it has to deal with our very defective Land Acts. The truth of the position we have taken up with regard to the amendment of Goldfield legislation thus becomes indirectly acknowledged. The sole and very vital difference is that any hitch [ in the interpretation of the Waste i Lands Acts arouses Executive as well' as general indignation, while a similar' Jiitch in the interpretation of the Gold--fields Act unfortunately arouses neither. No one can fail to sympathise with tjbe unfortunate position applicants for land in the Heriot Hundred have been placed in, owing to the blunders arising out of the divided authority that has to deal with our land law administration. It is not easy to keep down a considerable amount of indignation when the results to the applicants and to the Province are considered. It is well, however, to be sure with whom to be indignant. Ifc is easy to make a scapegoat of a morose Chief Commissioner. It is also eaoy by vague declamation and threat of martyrdom to make scapegoats of covetous and never-satisfied land-sharks. It would be well, though, to see that it was necessary to have a scapegoat at all. We are convinced there need not have dbeen.

The agrarian martyrs Messrs. Reid, Bastings, and Clark, have, however, clearly the best of it. Their being virtorious against their Chairman will not, unfortunately, help applicants to Becure and settle upon the land. That t is a secondary consideration when personal animus is allowed to creep in—rather, is chucked in head and shoulders. Have they not been threatened with compulsory retirement under a •cloud into private life ? Have they inot run the risk of being enclosed •within walls topped with broken glass? Let us hope, if matters come to the worst, Judge Johnstone's new system of classification will be an accomplished fact.

"W"e are debarred from entering upon the grounds of dispute now before the Judge. There is, however, nothing new about what has taken place. The runholders, who are the prominent instigators of tho present obstruction to settlement, have always been struggling as they could for means whereby to defeat the cancellation of their leases. Their case has been raised time after time before the Waste Lands Board, iby Mr. Connell and other agents. So long as their objections were met by reason and argument instead of by •petulant asseition of dignity and contempt, no extreme action was ever •dreamt of. Certainly the discreditable •deadlock now about to be experienced would never have occurred. We do not wish to detract from the 'Credit, patriotic devotion, and heroism, •of the agrarian martyrs. Yet we ■strongly believe that the first course Government or goyerning board should take in dealing with those whose toes have to bo trampled upon is to use tact and fair play. When these instruments fail a more high-handed policy may be justified. In the present unfortunate culmination of abuses the keener and more effective weapons have been discarded altogether without trial, and bruto forco has at once been called into play against the stronger party. Perhaps it was impossible for the Board, as personally constituted, to use weapons that it couAd not so much as even conceive of.