THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1907. EX-GOVERNORS AND COMPANIES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8446, 23 May 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1907. EX-GOVERNORS AND COMPANIES.

The recent circular despatch from Lord Elgin, expressing the opinion that retired colonial Governors would ! do well to refrain from taking a prominent part in the management of companies formed to develop the resources of territories they had administered, is based on circumstances attending the formation of the Ceylon Pearl Fisheries Company. This company obtained a lease of the colony's fishing beda, which had previously been a Government monopoly, for twenty years on extremely advantageous terms. In fat years the fisheries have been enormously profitable to the Government, yielding in 1905 a revenue of no less than £150,000, and ' the syndicate actually, before it got to work, received, under the terms of the lease, a sum equal to four years' rent at £20,000 a year. Sir West Ridgeway, an ex-Governor of the colony, accepted a seat on the board of directors of the leasing company. Some severe criticism was passed on the action of Mr Lyttelton and the Legislative Council of Ceylon in handing over such enormously valuable fisheries to a private company, and eventually there was a Parliamentary debate, in which emphasis wa3 laid on the undesirability which is the subject of Lord Elgin's despatch. The despatch, says a writer in a London paper, also calls attention to the sad -:ases of colonial Governors retired from business. Their Excellencies are not usually men of wealth, there are few posts where one can

"lay up eggs for a rainy day," and the lease of office usually ends when the incumbent is still in possession of full vigour. "It is sufficiently hard lines for a man who, representative of his sovereign, has been the principal personage in a colony to come back to London and find himself of no more account than an ordinary citizen," says the writer. "Beyond that is the lack of occupation, and in some cases the necessity for earning an income. Instinctively they turn their attention to becoming 'something in the city.' A K.C.M.G., especially if it supplements a name not unknown in connection with public affairs, has its money value on the proupectus of a new company, or on the board of directors of an old one. The temptation is great, and in the majority of cases blameless." Lord Milner, relieved from Imperial cares at the Cape, is one of those who has become a company director. Sir West Ridgeway made the mistaka of joining an enterprise connected with the colony he had governed. There is nothing to prevent ex-Governors joining companies operating in colonies other than those in which they have worked. THE COURTHOUSE SITE. We notice that Mr A. W. Hogg, M.H.R.. is defending the action of the Government, or rather that of the Minister for Justice, in not giving effect tc the arrangement made between Parliament and the Trustees of the Masterton Trust Lands Trust in connection with the exchange of sites, which would result in the Crown acquiring a suitable site for a Courthouse. We are not surprised that Mr Hogg is acting the part of advocate for the Crown. Were he to do otherwise he might disclose "a little rift within the lute" (perhaps a large one), and, of course, he is not going to do that. Mr Hogg admits that when the Masterton Trustees Empowering Act, 1902, . was passed that "no payment on either side was contemplated," and yet, as the Trustees have, since the Act was passed, made an offer to* the Government, Mr Hogg claims that right to an equivalent was admitted. The Trustees certainly did make an offer, but as a matter of fact they had no power whatever to pay a single penny to the Government in connection with the exchange, and Mr Hogg, as he is conversant with the Act, knows that the Trustees have no legal right to make any such payment to the Government. Mr Hogg cannot deny THIS FACT, no matter what his opinion of the position may be. Mr Hogg hopes that the Trustees about to be elected will negotiate with the Government and bring the deadlock to an end, and sn forth, but it seems tiiat all prospect of an exchange being effected is likely to vanish speedily. We are informed on good authority that the Government will call for tenders at an early date for the erection of a Police Station on their site in Queen Street. If our information is correct it shows how much the Government really value the site in question! The site is, of course, "vested in the Crown for public buildings" (a post and telegraph office and courthouse specifically), and it has, therefore, no saleable value and the Crown cannot, in justice to the people of Masterton, sell it any more than the Trustees have power to purchase it. So far as the legal position is conceited the Trustees of the Masterton Trust Lands Trust are, apparently, in the hands of the Government, but there is justice apart from law. In fact, as every one knows, the law is freuiiently unjust, and, as we have said before, if the Government do not carry out their agreement with the Trustees they will be guilty of a breach of good faith with the people of Masterton.