PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 136, 8 June 1872, Page 2

PROVINCIAL COUNCIL.

WESTPORT LAND PURCHASE ENQUIRY. On the Council meeting yesterday afternoon, the following report was brought up by Mr. Luckie, the chairman of tbe Westport Land Purchase Enquiry Committee :— The Select Committee appointed to inquire into the circumstances of the purchase of certain sections of land at Westport, after a Select Committee had resolved to recommend the Waste Lands Board to withhold them trom sale, beg to report as follows : — Your Committee took evidence at considerable length, and after a due and carefal consideration of that evidence, have unanimously arrived at the following statement of the faots:—

1. That it appears that Mr. Eugene Joseph O'Conor, one of the members of the Council for the Buller district, had, for some days prior to Tuesday, the 4th June, contemplated purchasing land io tbe upper part of the township. 2. That the Westport Sea Encroachment Committee met on Tuesday the fourth day of June, and, between the hours of eleven aud twelve noon, of that day, after due deliberation, resolved to immediately recommend the Waste Lands Board to withhold from sale all sections open for sale in tbe said township, pending the decision of the said Committee as to the propriety of distributing such land among persons who had suffered loss of land from sea aDd river encroachments. 3. That Mr. O'Conor was in the Committee Room during the whole of the deliberations on the said 4th June, and also when the Committee decided to recommend the withdrawal of the land from sale ; and, considering tbat Mr. O'Conor wa3 present at these Committee meetings at his own re- " quest and to assist at the enquiry — your Committee have no reason to doubt that Mr. O'Conor was well aware of the whole proceedings of the said Westport Committee at the meeting held on the 4th June. 4. That about noon on the same day, and after the closing of tbe sitting of the said Westport Committee, and only a lew minutes before tbe chairman thereof had communicated to the Waste Lands Board the resolution of the said Committee, Mr. O'Conor did purchase at the Waste Lands Office six of the said town sections which the Committee had in bis presence and hearing, resolved, should be withdrawn from sale, with a view to being applied to public purposes as aforesaid. D. M. Luckie, Chairman. Council Chamber, Nelson, June 7, 1872. Mr. Luckie having read the very voluminous evidence taken before the Committee, Mr. Eeid proposed an adjournment for ten minutes, in order to allow the Council to consider tbe evidence placed before them. Mr. O'Conor then asked to be allowed to make a statement, but several members objected to his doing so then. The Speaker however, ruled that he would be in order iu speakiDg to the adjournment. Mr. O'Conor said that before the Council adjourned he wished to be allowed the opportunity of affording some explanation with reference to the cbarge brought, against him, particularly as there were some inaccuracies and wrong statements in the evidence that had just been read. Pie felt that he labored under a very great difficulty in defending himself, as be was called upon to prove a negative ; to show that a certain circumstance which was alleged to have taken place did not occur, and his position was rendered still more difficult by bis not having a copy of the evidence, and by the fact tbat he was cut out from giving evidence of a highly important nature because it referred to matters that were strictly private, but which, if produced, would show that he was bound to follow that particular line of conduct wbich bad exposed him to this charge. There was a certain telegram in his possession which would explain tbe whole matter, but in making tbat public he would be exposing, not only his own private affairs, but those of another person, and he could not bring himself to drag these affairs before both friends and foes. To put it in olher words, in order to prove himself innocent of a dishonorable action of which he had been accused, it would be necessary for him to be guilty of a breach of trust. Was there a single member, he would ask, in that Chamber who would pursue such a course? Were he to produce this evidence, it would at once be se n that he had decided upon buying these sections some time ago, but that it was necessary for him to wait for the receipt of the telegram to which he had alluded, before completing the purchase. That telegram was placed in his hands in the Committee room on Tuesday morning, and he at once acted upon it. He was not present in that room as a member of the Committee, but under these circumstances: It had at first been proposed to him that he should be a member of it, but this he had declined, because oue part of its duties was to decide whether compensation should be awarded to the losers by the floods at Westport. Considering that at leaßt three-quarters of the property washed away within the last six weeks was his freehold, he did not think it proper that he shoul ; belong to the Committee, and therefore he had declined. A few day b later, the report of the Provincial Engineer was sent in, containing the recommendation that the Government

Buildings should be removed, and then he expressed a wish to be upon the Committee, as he saw that it was to the interest of his constituents that lie should b6 so, and a seat was offered to him, but on second thoughts, he ngain declined, ns lie could not separate the two questions in his own mind. He only attended the meetings of the Commiitee once, find then for the purpose of giving evidence, that concluded, he immediately left. On the morning in question, he was summoned to attend another Committee, and, while he was waiting in the room, several members dropped in oue after another, and he then found that the Westport Committee wits about to sit. He was about to leave the room when Me. Macmahon gave him a newspaper that he had promised him, and he then took a seat at the end of the room, at the window, and proceeded to read it, and while he was soengsged, be received no distinct impression whatever of the business that was going on. He might have bad a vague idea at times, but the whole affair was mixed up with what he was reading, and he had no definite notion of what was taking place. When the telegram, releasing him from the pecuniary difficulty which up to that time had prevented his closing for the purchase of the land, was put into his hand, he at at once left the room without having the least knowledge that it was proposed to withdraw the laud from sale. Had he known that it was to be withheld for the purpose of being distributed among the losers, he would have been an idiot to purchase the sections, as he would have been throwing money away, for he being the principal loser would have received the larger portion. As to the probability of the value of the land being increased by the removal of the Government Buildings to that part, that was publicly known before the Committee met, as the Provincial Engineer, the members of tbe Government, and of the Council, as well as the people of Westport were of all one mind on that question. Besides, the fact of cutting up ten acres of land and dividing them amongst the numberless losers by the floods would have provided for the requirements of four times the number of those who had suffered and would have flooded the market with sections, and, consequently, i hose that he had purchased would have deteriorated rather than increased in value. The probable sanction of the Government to Mr. Dobson's scheme bad been made public, and after that no report of the Committee, even if agreed to, could have added to the value of the land. He could not actually prove that he had not heard the resolution, but he positively asserted that he had not done so, nor had he any idea

that it was likely to be decided upon. Had he done so he would no more have purchased that land than cut his own head off, although in refraining from so doing, he would have debarred himself from making a purchase which he had long determined upon. Had Mr. Kynnersley told him of the resolution when he met him in the Land-office, it would not have been too late, and he then would have refrained from buying. But now he was the purchaser, and although when Mr. Kynoersley first rose in the Council to make the charge agaiost him he was dumbfoundered, confused, and utterly unabie to understand it, he now could see the interpretation that might be placed upon his action in this matter, and would even allow that Mr. Kynnersley was apparently warranted in the course he had adopted. He had appealed to some of the members, and begged of them to allow him to lay bare his private affairs to them in confidence, in order that they might endorse his statement of the position in which he had been placed, but they would not do so ; but he would yet call upon a body with which he was connected to institute a full and searching investigation, which, he was perfectly satified, must end in his «ompiete exoneration. He would state agtua that he was not in the room when the resolution was agreed to; and to show that he was not actuated by the knowledge that such a resolution had been passed, he would say that he had not hurried himself, but had gone first to his house, then to the Bank, and then back to the Land Office. If the Council would, before giving judgment in the matter, allow the Speaker to be appointed arbiter, and to say, after examining the private correspondence and telegrams he would show him, whether the pecuniary difficulties to which he had referred had existed, but were removed by the receipt of the telegram ; and if, in addition to this, they would take his word that he was not in the room at the time the Committee decided upon withdrawing the land from sale, be felt sure that not one of them would be found to say a single word against his honor. He would repeat that he did not attend the Committee to take part in the deliberations but simply to give evidence, and that, although in tbe room, he did not listen to what was going on, still he felt sure that if the de< ision to withdraw the land from sale was arrived at whilst he was there, it would have been sufficiently- startling, as affecting his interests so closely, to attract his attention and to have forced him to hear what was being said. He was accused of acting upon information officially obtained, but i the principal information affecting the value of the land, the proposition to make a road, and remove the Government Buildings to it, was public before the Committee met. Once again be would say that the telegram and other papers to which he had alluded, contained information that would entirely clear him, but being of a private nature he would not divulge their contents, although he felt tbat j without them no one could obtain the right clue to his conduct. The Council then adjourned for ten minutes, and on le-assembliug, The Provincial Solicitor, said that when the subject was first brought forward he had moved for the appointment of a Select Committee because he found that the Council was asked to pass a resolution without fully considering the facts of the case. That Committee had met daily, and after taking a vast amount of evidence, had unanimously adopted the report just read. It now devolved on him to perform a most painful and unpleasant duty in moving a resolution strongly reflecting on the character of one of the members. The occasion that had given rise to such a resolution was one that caused him the deepest regret, but having been requested to bring it forward he should fail in his duty were he to refuse to do so, and he felt sure that both the Council and the honorable member referred to would believe that he was not actuated by any personal feeling or animosity in performing that duty. In making their report the Committee had purposely abstained from making any remark on the conduct of Mr. O'Conor, and in moving a resolution, which he believed would be agreed to by every member, ■ especially by those who had been on the Committee, he should preserve the same reticence. He would move, " That the facts narrated in tbe Report of the Select Committee of this Council, appointed to take into consideration the action of one of its members in connection with the purchase of certain lands in the town of Westport, and the evidence appended thereto, disclose a coarse of conduct on the part of one of the members for the Buller (Mr. Eugene Joseph O'Conor), of a kind entirely unparalleled and unprecedented in the annals of the Council, highly! derogatory to its character, . and demanding its severest reprobation. Mr. Ktonerslky seconded the resolution. ;

Mr. Tarrant wished lo say tbat, as a member of tbe Westport Committee, he most fully concurred in ihe evidence that had been rear]. He coulu state most positively that Mr. O'Conor was present when it was decided to recommend that tbe land should be withheld from sale, and tbat, sitting where lie was, he must havo beard every word thai was said. The resolution was carried unanimously. The Provincial Treasurer wished to refrain from making any remarks ou the conduct of a member who had caused so much pain and anxiety to every member of the Council. The resolution to which they had just agreed contained a rebuke tbat could not be otherwise than most cutting to any man having tbe smallest particle of honor in his composition, but there was yer. another step which he felt that tbe Council was called upon to take, namely, to demand reparation from him wbo had so wronged the people of Westport by securing for himself land that, it was proposed to distribute amongst those who had been losers by the floods. It was quite possible, and indeed very likely, that Mr. O'Conor had for some time contemplated the purchase of these sections, but the whole weight of the charge against him rested upon the solitary circumstance that he was present. when it was agreed to withdraw the land from sale. This had been provea by all the members of fhe Committee, and therefore it was clear that he left tbe room and purchased the sections, knowing full well that in a few roiuutes they would be reserved for equitahle distribution among those who had suffered from the floods. He would therefore move "That a humble address be presented to his Excellency the Governor hy the Speaker of this Council, praying his Excellency to refuse the issue of Crown Grants in respect to certain sections of land in the town of Westport, numbered respectively 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, and 472, alleged to have been purchased by Eugene Joseph O'Conor, one of the members of this Council, on the 4th of June, 1872, under circumstances referred to in the foregoing resolution, and in the report of the committee upon wbich that resolution is based." Mr. Luckie seconded the resolution which was carried unanimously. The report and evidence were then ordered to be printed, aud the Council adjourned until Monday, at 5 p.m.