THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1911. THE MOKAU TRANSACION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10454, 20 October 1911, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1911. THE MOKAU TRANSACION.

The report of the Native Affairs Committee on the Mokau transaction is exactly what Mr Massey ami everybody else expected it to be. iftow could it be otherwise, when seventenths of the Committee aire Govern*ment supporters ? The report declares ttbat the government and 'Mr Massey are in agreement on every point excepting three minor issues, which are dialt with seriatim. This declaration is entirely unsupported by fact. The gravamen of Mr Massey's charge was that the Government had allowed an estate to go into private hands ■which should have ibeen acquired for closer (settlement, and that the profitui which are now going to private individuals should have gone >to the State. The Native Affairs Committee .surely does, mot affirm that the Government is in agreement: iwith Mr Massey on this point. If it does, then the Ministry stands i&elfeonvicted ox a gross dereliction of public duty. The omission of .any .reference in the report to this aspect of ttho question is striking, to say the least of it. The Committee asks the public to believe that the statement that members of a Company will practically have a monopoly of the wbole of the coal-hearing areas on the West Coast of Taranaiki is disproved. Tlris is one of the "minor" issues referred to by the Cornianittee. It. is not denied, however, that the va«t coal-beairing areas in the Mokau estate are controlled iby a Company. And if this ibe so, them the State and the country are. suffering a heavy loss by these areas going into the hands of private individuals. The questions' of whether the Natives hove Ibeen fairly dealt with, or whether the sanction of the iGovemor-in-

Council was given at a proper time or in a rigbt maimer, are neither ihere nor there. The fact remains, and it canno* be gainsaid, that a huge slioe of country that might reasonably have been acquired hy the State, together with valuable mineral resources, has been bartered away by th*» Natives, apparently with the sanction and approval of the 'Government. It is all very well for Ministers to .say that the Crown had not the opportunity of acquiring the land. The Crown had the isame opportunity as private individuals. Moreover, it had the power of refusing to remove the res.trictio7iis upon the land and of thus preventing it falling into the hands of speculators. In spite of the application <i the •white-washing 'brush by the*' Natr ive Affairs Committee, Ministers cannot rid themselves of the responsibility for having given their sanction to a transaction which, .from the point of view of public policy, will not istand the test of iscrutiny. Mr Massey deserves well of the electors for having drawn attention to the transaction, for it is only by the iigut of day being shed upon these matters that the interests of the public are safeguarded.