POLITICAL NOTES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2220, 27 June 1891, Page 2

POLITICAL NOTES.

The Honorable John McKenzie clinched another lie last Tuesday in Parliament* The Southland office was not conducted in a satisfactory manner, and Mr McKenzie found it necessary to make alterations. He ordered the removal of Mr Spence to Westland, but that gentleman refused to go, and retired. He waited until he got his compensation from the Government, and then made the moat violent attack on the Honorable Mr McKenzie that could have been made. For vituperative abusiveness we have seen nothing worse for a long time, Mr McKenzie replied, and not only reduced Mr Spence’s accusations to dust, but showed that he was anything but an officer deserving of confidence, The next to attack Mr McKenzie was a Mr Royds, who bad been retrenched He asserted that, although Mr Spence advised to the contrary, Mr McKenzie bad granted the New Zealand Fine Company an additional area of forest land in Southland. The letter which contained this accusation appeared in the Otago Daily Times, and the insinuation was that it was a “ job,” because Sir Robert Stout is chairman of directors of the company. This was taken up with great avidity by the Tories, and Mr G. F. Richardson

asked Mr McKenzie last Tuesday in Parliament whether it was true; Mr McKenzie said it was not. Mr Spence recommended him to grant the company’s application, but he refused to do so! The poor Tories! They will soon be deprived k of grounds for telling a plausible lie. Poor Mr Bryce ! He must be in a cohfused state of mind. He thinks that a little extra taxation will make owners of large estates cease to work them, and consequently there will be less employment for the people. On the other hand, he thinks taxing totalisatora will encourage gambling. Now if taxation deters owner of large estates from working them, why should taxation induce people to gamble? The logic is rather lame. As regards large estates, in the aggregate they give little employment. At the worst their owners must look after their sheep and shear them, and that is about all the employment they giro. Labor will not lose by losing them.

That fashionable philosopher, Scobie Mackenzie, Esq., M.H.8., was guilty of the meanest action last Thursday evening that anyone could .conceive. In prosperous days the Honorable W. Beeves speculated in land, and his speculations, unfortunately for his family, proved extremely unremunerative. The fact is, they nearly ruined him. He has been dead only a month or two, yet Mr Soebie Mackenzie, in bis speech in Parliament last Tuesday, had the unspeakably bad taste of throwing this in the face of bis son, the Honorable W. P. Beeves. It would have been extremely bad taste to refer to transactions of this kind if the late Mr Beeves had been alive, but he being dead it was cruel, unmanly, and objectionable beyond expression.