The Opunake Times TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1895. THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 128, 24 September 1895, Page 2

The Opunake Times TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1895. THE PUBLIC TRUSTEE.

In another column we give an extract from the evidence taken before the Waste Lands Committee on the West Coast Lessees petition. When the Act of 1892 was passed and such absolute power placed in the Trustee’s hands, it was looked on as the only way to deal with these lands, which were becoming a constant source of trouble to the Government. In order to get them settled, the Government, by Act of Parliament, did away with every private right in the land which the natives possessed, except that of receiving whatever rent they might produce, and handed them over bodily to the Public Trustee. The conditions fixed under which they should be thrown open for selection were to be similar to the perpetual lease obtaining with regard to Crown lands. Selectors would reasonably expect that they would be treated similarly to Crown tenants, but actual experience has proved the contrary. _ They anticipated that the Public Trustee would be a kind of supreme arbitrator between them and the native owners, and in that capacity would see justice done to each. They very naturally expected that he would be a thinking, reasoning, rational being, who could be approached and reasoned with over any grievance that might arise, but they have been sadly mistaken. At the enquiry one of the committee, Mr Hall, asked him : “ I want to ask you if, in your opinion, your duty as Trustee has, in some things, made it a hardship to the tenants of the land ? ” The Public Trustee replied : “ I am a machine for securing to the owners of the property and the estates that I administer all that I can without regard to the feelings or sufferings of any tenants.” What a treasure of an agent he would be for a rack-rent-ing Irish landlord 1