BUSHY PARK ESTATE.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 211, 18 November 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

BUSHY PARK ESTATE.

On the Ist October Mr Fraser, member for Wakatipu and of the Assets Board, made an explanation in the House as to the Bale of Bushy Park to the sons of the Minister for Lands. He was emphitic in the statement that the McKenzie's was the only offer made for the estate, and quoted figures showing that the average profits for rive years from the estate had been £405, which capitalised at 5 per cent, would not come to £4 per acre, whereas the McKenzie's paid £B. Mr G. Hutchison in replying said the honourable gentleman has given us a few facts, which he has, no doubt, correctly stated ; but there are more than he has given to the House. I propose to briefly run over the leading facts in chronological order. I shall go back a little further than he did—to 1891, when a lease of the Bushy Park Estate was expiring. The rental was then 14s an acre. It was leased by a neighbour of the Minister of Lands, a gentleman he knows very well as a substantial man and a practical farmer. "When his lease had nearly run out he wrote offering 13s an acre for the estate. That was iu the days when the propertj was owned by the Bank of New Zealand Estates Company ; but I assume that when the globo assets were transferred under the Act of 1895 to the Assets Board all the papers connected with the various estates so transferred were handed over to the Board ; if they were not, the papers ought to have been looked up in the possession of the bank. I repeat that in 1891 this former tenant, who had five years' knowledge of the property, offered in writing to lease it again at 13s an acre. The offer was refused. He then verbally made a further proposal to a high official of the Bank of New Zealand, who was also acting in connection with the Estates Company—the bank and the company being one and indivisible. The second offer was to lease the estate at 13s an acre, and to bind himself to purchase it at the end of fire years at £lO an acre. That was also refused. I am informed that still another offer was made by auother settler of £lO an acre straight out; and the same person, who is, I believe, a practical man, is prepared to state that if the land had been put up to auction he would hare gone as far as £l2 an acre for it. In 1893 there was a petition sent to the Minister of Lands sigucd by eighty-nine petitioners, asking that the estate might bo cut up for settlement; and at the election that year the Minister got considerable credit in the district he was then canvassing, from the promise—or what was understood by the electors as a promise—that Bushy Park would be acquired by the Government and cut up for elose settlement. The Minister even had a plan of the estate showing it divided into small allotments, and exhibited this at a meeting; and it no doubt brought him considerable support. Instead of the promise of the Minister being fulfilled, we find in 1895 the property transferred by the bank to the Assets Board. The honourable member for Wakatipu gave us some figures as to " the book-value." If the figures laid before the Banking Committee last year are to be relied upon the following are correct

Mr Fraser. —I gave the figures as laid before the Committee.

Mr G. Hutchison.—They are as follows :—Book-value, £23,969 for the land.

Mr Fraser.—For the land and sheep. Mr G. Hutchison.—Yes, my honourable friend is quite right, and I am delighted to accept the addition. But another return, produced before the Banking Committee, gives the property at f 24,648, as the price that the colony was actually paying the bank. Mr Fraser.—Oh, no. Mr G. Hutchison.—My honourable friend must on this occasion admit he is in error. If he will look at page 151 of Volume 4 of the Appendices of last year he will see that what I have stated is correct. The stock included in these statements was something over £4OOO. Now, what occurred ? In April, 1596, an advertisement, which the honourable gentleman has read, was inserted in some of the newspapers of the colony. It would be well for those who take any interest in this matter to look at that advertisement again. It will be found to be of the vaguest possible character. It makes no reference to any particular estate, and, of course, none to Bushy Park. Then, we have this important fact admitted by the honourable gentleman : That the chairman of the Board was telegraphed to in December, 1896, asking if Bushy Park was for sale, or would it be leased. The answer was that it would be offered for sale by public auction in the month of March following—that is, this year—and that it would not be leased. This fact is of the greatest significance in view of what followed. The telegram to the chairman of the Board was from a Farmers' Association in Dunediu, and the reply was sent to them, and consequently it was widely known. My honourable friend the member for Wakatipu gave the dates of the telegrams as December, 1896. The reply was explicit—its effect beyond doubt: " Wc will sell Bushy Park by auction in March next; we will not lease." This was the mcsaiige sent to the Farmers' Association in Dunedin, and therefore known to a considerable number of people there and elsewhere. It was, I believe, common report in the

part of the colony in which Bushy Park is situated that the property was going to be submitted to public: auction in March. Yet, in view of that tact, in the preceding month of January, on the receipt of an offer from two gentlemen named Mclvcnzie, sons of the Minister of Lands, a meeting of the Board was called for the day immediately following, when it was promptly intimated to them that thoy could have the property at the rate of £$ an acre. They had asked that it should be sold to them. The Board decided it should be leased. But the terms were the same in either case ; there was no difference, inasmuch as the purchasing clause in the lease was the consideration for the land, and the rent was 4 per cent, on the principal. Mr Fraser.— 4h per cent.

Mr G. Hutchison.—Yes, per cent. My honourable friend somewhat amusingly described the action of the Premier at the meetint; of the Board. 1 did not know before that the Premier had the merit of being Hibernian, but his remark savours somewhat of an Irish joke. According to the honourable member for "Wakatipu the Premier announced, " If the Board is unanimous I will not object." Of course not. The Board was unanimous. Whatever we may think of the conduct of the other two members of the Board, so far as my honourable friend the member for Wakatipu was concerned he had, at any rate, the justification that he was instructed by his principals, the directors of the Bank of New Zealand, to sell at t'S an acre. As for the Premier, he knew all about it. Mr Seddon.—l did not. Mr Hutchison.—Very well, then, the Premier did not know, and yet he was willing to assent to everything or any thing. Mr Seddon.—l am not always an autocrat. Mr G. Hutchison.—No ;it probably did not suit the Premier on that occasion to play the port. It is not always necessary to put down his foot—sometimes to bend his finger is enough. He said in December that the Board was not going to dispose of the place except by auction in March, and yet the month after he telegraphed, and two mouths before the time he had intimated for the sale, he and the other two members of the Board disposed of it privately. In so doing the members were not acting for the best, nor in the way that might have been expected of those who were in the position of trustees of the public. The result is that a property has been disposed of at i'San acre, which we have reason to believe would have fetched at least £lO an acre. An Hon. Member. —No.

Mr G. Hutchison. —I say we have reason to believe it would have realised £lO an acre—a property which certainly should have been open to public competition, but disposed of privately to the sons of the Minister of Lands.

Mr Seddon.—Why, it was for ten months advertised. Mr G. Hutchison.—lf the Premier thinks that such assertions improve his position lie is perfectly welcome to interject them every five minutes. What was done in the way of advertising was that in .April, 1596, all the properties of the Board, without any particalars, were notified as open for disposal. Some months after, the chairman, communicating on behalf of the Board, using for the purpose the plural number " we," notified that the property would not be disposed of except by auction in the month of March, 1897 ; and yet two months earlier it was disposed of privately to the sons of the Minister of Lam's, on the basis of a sale at a price which I say was less than it would probably have fetched in the open market, with the whole of the purchase-money left on interest at 4i per cent., while the stock was sold at lesß than half the valuation the colony had paid upon. AVc have had the Advances to Settlers Office pointed to as an institution that lias assisted struggling settlers, but the best terms they can get are 5 per cent. With this transaction the terms are much better. The favoured purchasers arc allowed by a scratch meeting of the Assets Board to borrow the whole pur-chase-money at 4'r per cent. This is the position ?nd the facts as announced tonight. They only confirm what was previously known, but, being now placed beyond all doubt, they must deepen the conviction throughout the colony that this Board, composed as it is of the Premier and a nominee of the Bank of New Zealand, with another as chairman, has not done its duty by the public, but has given a scandalous preference to the relatives of a Minister.