THE MOKAU.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 136, 4 December 1911, Page 5

THE MOKAU.

MR. McNAB'S POSITION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Palmerston North, Last Night. The following communication has been .s'int to Mr. Robert McNab by Hawke's Bay shareholders and directors of he Alokau Company, all of whom are members o! the Opposition. One of these (Mr. McLean) was a member of the Opposition Parliamentary Party. They intimate that he may make what use he thinks lit of it.

"Although in politics we are supporters of the Reform Party and are opposed to the. policy ■ of the present Government, which you are supporting, we enti r our most emphatic protest against the action of our party leaders, and those who are supporting them, in the altitude they have taken up in reference to the purchase of the Mokau Estate by the Mokau Coal Company. We are shareholders in the company, and some of us are directors. Some of us sold the property to the company, and all are intimately acquainted with the circumstances connected with the purchase. We also know the circumstances under which you were induced to take shares in the company, and at our request to become chairman. Not one of those circumstances reflect in any way upon the action of the Government or upon yourself, and although the campaign of slander is being carried on by men of our own Party, and by our own Party leader, in order to Btrike a, blow at the Government and to keep you out of the public life of this country, our ideas of justice and fair play compel us to tell the people of the Do- 1 minion, for what our statements are worth, that the charges made against yourself and the Government are entirely untrue, and in our opinion are a disgrace to party politics. (Signed) Bernard Chambers, T. Mason Chambers, William Nelson, R. D. D. McLean, D. Whyte."

MR. OKEY IN REPLY. In his meeting at Westown on Friday night Mr. H. Okey referred to the Prime Minister's statement re the Mokau land transaction. He stated that the Prime Minister could not be acquainted with the true facts of the ease. He pointed out that the survey lines were, in the first place, over the whole block, amounting to 56,0010 acres. This was a charge on the land prior to Jones' lense. therefore it was a first charge upon the whole block. In 1900 arrangements were made for the Crown to take over 5021 acres in discharge of the lines over the whole block. This was agreed to by the Native Land Court, and the area of Jones' lease was reduced by the amount of land taken. This paying off the survey charges allowed Flowers' trustees, who held the lease, to give a land transfer lease title to the sublessees of the block. The cutting up of this piece of land made it Crown land, free from nnv encumbrance, and it could have been sold at any time. The statement made by the Prime Minister that at a further meeting of Hie Native Land Court the laud was allowed to revert buck to the natives, wants further enquiring into, hut the fact of the solicitors acting for the purchasers depositing £I4OO 8s 3d makes it appear that they purchased the land from the Crown instead of tho natives. The whole of the facts point to the Crown allowing this 5021 acres to be sold nt 5s -Od per aero without any competition.