Squatter-Politicians

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 289, 27 February 1928, Page 8

Squatter-Politicians

“ PEOPLE IN GLASS HOUSES ”

Hon. A. D. McLeod Among Flockmasters

JIVING, as he does, in the Wairarapa, where the immense holdings of the Riddiford family represent the Dominion’s greatest aggregation of landed wealth, Mr. McLeod should speak with some authority on the matter of big flocks and broad acres. On the various Riddiford stations, planted close together at the southern end of the Wellington Province, graze over 120,000 sheep. Every fluctuation in wool prices represents a fortune for the owners of these immense flocks. Mr. McLeod himself is not so poorly off. His station, Mangapari, Martinborough, i*uns 2,656 sheep, enough to Us tK Hi SK Hi

M r’r 111 yr Vr yr >ll r'r r!t r!r r!-f 7-11 Jr. yield their owner a substantial enough income when coupled with his Ministerial salary of £1,200 odd a year, and perhaps even as much as Mr. Ransom collects on his relatively modest flock, comprising 5,939 sheep grazed in Akitio County, Hawke’s Bay. As a member of the Reform Party Mr. McLeod is perhaps in as much of a glass house as that which, so he says, shelters Mr. Ransom. Among his colleagues on the Reform benches are numbered some of the wealthiest squatters in the country. PRIME MINISTER’S FLOCK The Prime Minister, Mr. Coates, himself is a modest flockmaster. In the return of sheepowners, 1927, he is set down as sharing with E. K. and E. T. R. Coates a flock of 2,090. The Matakohe property runs dairy herds as well, and the Hon. Mr. Hawken, a member of one of the most prominent Taranaki farming families, is another who has successfully combined both sheep and dairy farming. The Hon. K. S. Williams, by com-

137 HEN, in a moment of expansive candour, the Hon. A. L). TV McLeod admitted that 500 New Zealand sheepowners •own more than 6,000 sheep apiece, he omitted to mention that some of the largest flocks are owned by Cabinet Ministers, and other members of the Reform Party in Parliament. In applying his lash to Mr. E. A. Ransom, he might have directed it, as well, at the Hon. K. S. "W the Hon. W. Nosworthy, Sir George Hunter, and Mr. TV. D. Lysnar.

parison, is a leading squatter. His Tokomaru Bay station carries 14,000 sheep, and is one of a number held by various members of a family that is predominant among Xe w Zealand landed interests. Two cousins. Messrs. H. B. and A. B. Williams, sons of the late J. N. Williams, a pioneer Hawke’s Bay grazier, are sometimes credited with being the wealthiest men in New Zealand. H. B. Williams shears close on 40,000 sheep, if not more, and his interests, along with those of other members of the famous ecclesiastical and pastoral clan, recur frequently along the East Coast, and at Te Aute. in the centre of the richest pastoral country of Hawke’s Bay. In the same neighbourhood are the immense flocks of other famous politicians, with Mr. W. D. Lysnar, owner of 24,000 sheep, the biggest of them all. Sir Apirana Ngata must find his Parliamentary salary, £450, a paltry sum beside the return from his 11,000 sheep, and Sir George Hunter, member for Waipawa, probably does not need his at all. The Hunter lands at Porangahau carry 30,000 sheep, and Sir George’s flock of 17,466 is one of the largest in a province that is renowned for its wool-kings. WIDESPREAD INTERESTS

The Hon. W r . Nosworthy, member for the doomed Ashburton constituency, is another big sheepowner. He has one flock of 14,000 sheep registered in his own name, and another of 3,000 registered in the name of W. and R. Nosworthy. Instances of widespread interests held by only one man. or in the name (often purely nominal) of near relatives, are not rare. Sir Andrew Russell has a large flock in Hawke’s Bay, and a share in another, comprising 11,000 sheep, running on a big property near Wanganui. The Lowry family, of Hawke’s Bay, has 20,000 sheep on its Okawa property—this divided among Mr. T. H. Lowry and two of his sons—and another 11,000 sheep on a property at the back of Taihape. Sir Douglas McLean and the Chambers family, also of Hawke’s Bay, control immense flocks on several different stations, and the family of Mr. Hugh Campbell, another member of the Reform Party in Parliament, has large interests in Hawke’s Bay and on the East Coast. The Auckland Province knows out few flocks of the size held by the squatters of Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury. North of Auckland are fairly large flocks owned by Keenes, of Te Paki, 4,400; Ludbrooks, of Ohaewai, 7,000; Bucklands, Kaipapa), 7,000; Hardings, Dargavllle, 7,000; R. J. Bell, Tangowahine, 7,000; and G. T. Bayly, Dargaville, 5,000. South of Auckland is a property at Hunua, owned by A. B. Williams, carrying 1,700 odd sheep. Yates and Co. run 3,300 sheep on their Karaka property, and there are some fair flocks on Waiheke and adjacent islands. But the only really large flocks until the East Coast country is reached is that owned by H. E. Troutbeck, Rotorua, who grazes 17,000 sheep on a property at Fort Galatea.