PIAKO SWAMP SWINDLE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 362, 11 February 1876, Page 3

PIAKO SWAMP SWINDLE.

■ ('Evening News.') It is admitted that only capital could make such land, but it is indisputable that other capital' equally as well as the capital of the Piako Swamp Company could have done it, and that if the Government had undertaken drainage works these " small settlers," who are such an abhorrence to our contemporary (the ' Dunedin Star') and its party, might have there founded happy homes without resorting to the enterprise of growing frogs. In illustration of this we might point to the ex. tract letter signed " Piako," which we recently published. That letter produced a profound sensation in the North. We know the writer, and he and hiß friends—very wealthy capitalists were prepared to give a far higher price, and he had gone away..to form a company for the the secret sale was completed: So much for the yal.uesof ,the land.. But need we say that the value or valuelessness of the land' l i 3' not the basis of the " vast amount of nonsense talked and written about the Piako Swamp." We shall admit, for argument's sake, that the land is worth not five shillings but a farthing per acre. Does this in anything more justify its secret disposal in defiance of express statute defining the manner of sale ? For though in its opening rhodomontade our contemporary ridicules the vast amount of nonsense about the illegality of iibe sale surely he does not assert thrt the sale was according to law ? The Government admits it was illegal, and will our contemporary assert its legality ? Statutory law prescribed for advertising, subdivision, and open sale by auction. There was no public notification ; there was no . subdivision; there was no auction, nor even tenders called. It was. ...privately sold to a company consisting of friends of the Government, and it is believed—we do not assert it, nor. will it now probably ever be proved—but the whole people in tbe North believe without any reservation, ihat members of the Government were members of the Company. Supposing that His Honor the Superintendent and his Executive privately disposed of, say a hundred thousand acres in Otago to half-a-dbzen thick and'thin supporters, the public being confident that members of the Provincial Government had themselves shares in the company held in other names? Supposing that other persons were holding their capital in reserve to purchase the same block of land; and waiting in confidence that the intended sale would bo advertised, and submitted to competition ? Supposing that after enquiry the utter illegality of the proceeding was shown, that the Provincial Government admitted they had no power to do what was done; and that an Act of some sort was passed to whitewash all that had such illicit transactions with the Government? Tet sucb are just the circumstances of the Piako Stvamp Swindle, with the one difference that the one would have been Provincialism, and the other Centralism. Would our contemporary protest againstthe " unmitigated abuse, the calumnious reproaches showered upon the Government about this business" at the hands of all honest men ? Would our contemporary plead that no better mode of rendering the land available for setfclea|ent could have been adopted than handing it secretly over to form a huge pasturage for the company of capitalists ? And when we should,have, thundered against Mr. Macandrew and his Government—as unquestionably we should—would our contemporary have attacked us for the " profundity of vituperation" with which we would speak of this deliberate thieving? We recommend our contemporary to deal delicately with the Piako Swamp: It is a dirty business, and we have too much respect for our contemporary to like to see him floundering in Piako mad. Let him defend the stolen miners' rights of Ghinemuri, or the Tairua double bargaining, or the. settlement of the " eyes" of purchased lands on wives and bairns. These things, though sanctioned or pardoned by the Central Ministry, have been only done by their officers. But the Pjako. swindle was the immediate act of the members of tbe Ministry in secret Council deliberating; and in the estimation of every honest man 'vas the filling up r of their measure of iniquity.:. And despite the apology of our contemporary, we shall not refrain from denouncing it as the most daring and barefaced swindle that ever disgraced a Government in any one of the Australian colonies.