A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 139, 7 December 1911, Page 5

A CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

THE MOKAU AFFAIR. A KNOCK-OUT BLOW. By Telegraph—Press Association. Palmerston N., Last Night. Mr. C. A. Lougbnaii, solicitor for the Moka.ii Company, writing in the Manawatu Daily Times, takes up Mr. Massey's challenge made at Parnell last night that there should ibe a definite charge regarding his attitude on the Mokau question. Mr. Loughnan writes: —"Sir, —l am not content to let the matter stand there and propose to leave Mr. Massey no possible loophole of escape from my charges, which I specify as follows: (1) That the statement that the 5021 acres actually became Crown lands is untrue; (2) that the statement that it was available for settlement is untrue; (3«) that the statement that the Government sold the 5021 acres to the company or to anyone else, for 5s 10d per acre or at any other price is untrue; (4) that the often repeated statement that speculators made £OO,OOO profit out of the Mokau transaction is untrue; (5) that the Government could have taken either the (freehold or the leasehold of the Mokau Mohakatiwo block or any part of it compulsorily, is untrue; (ti) that the statement that the. Government ought to have purchased the freehold and leasehold interests in the Mokau block, instead of allowing speculators to do so is untrue, inasmuch as the Government was advised by its responsible officers that it could not safely give more than £35,000 for the properties in question (see valuation attached to Mokau report), where the natives demanded £25,000 for the freehold and Mr. Lewis £55,000 for the leasehold, making a total of £80,000; (7) that the statement that Mr. Lewis' leasehold interests in the property had been held to be bad is untrue; (8) that the statement that the difference between the price paid to the Maoris for the freehold and that paid by the company for both freehold and leasehold is all profit is untrue, and the proceeds from the untrue assumption that Mr. Lewis'' leasehold interests in the property were valueless, it having been established and sworn to by Mr. Jones !at the Mokau enquiry that he had been j offered £IOO,OOO for these very leaseholds by a London .syndicate; (!)) that Mr. Massey's original statement to the effect that a second Order-in-Council authorising the Mokau Company or syndicate to purchase another native block of 170,000 acres was untrue, and supported by no foundation in fact whatever: (10) that the suppression by Mr. Massey in his Palmerston North speech of the date upon which the Order-in- ; Council was agreed to be granted by the Cabincnt was misleading, and calculated to give the public the impression that the gazetting of the order in the following March was the result of Mr. McNab having joined the company as chairman in the interval. I don't know what particular fact 9 the Hawke's bay gentlemen were referring to when they expressed their opinion that Mr. Massey's .statements were <p. disgrace tlo party politics, but I do say that the above are the circumstances I relied upon when I endorsed that opinion in my letter of this morning, and Mr. Massey can take what change he can get out of that.—(Signed)—C. A. LOUGHNAN." MR. MeNAB AND MR. MASSEY. Palmerston N., Last Night. Mr. McNab addressed a packed and enthusiastic meeting here to-night, and referred further to the Mokau matter and his challenge to Mr. Massey in that regard. He repeated that Mr' Massey, in stating that the Order-in-Coum-il had not been granted until March, and that lie (Mr. McNab) joined the company in January, at the same time suppressing the fact that the resolution for the issuing of the Order-in-Council had been passed in December, that he (Mr. Massey) had been guilty of more than not being frank—he had been dishonest. Mr. Massey had, in replying to the letter from the Hawke's Bay shareholders, asked that the men who signed the letter should say where he had told falsehoods. He would enumerate those (to use Mr. Massey's own words) "falsehoods" as follows-.—(1) The statement that the 5021 acres were up to a few months ago the property of the Dominion; (2) that those lands had been sold by the Government privately; (3) that the land had been handed over to the company for 5s lOd per acre.