The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECOMBE Proprietor. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1897.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 224, 18 December 1897, Page 2

The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECOMBE Proprietor. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1897.

Every right thinking man will be glad to learn that the Government have been defeated in their attempt to prevent Sir W. Duller and Major Kemp being heard at the bar of the House in defence of their position with regard to the Horowhenua Block. If Ministers could have had their way the Bill to take their land from them would have been dealt with by the Native Committee, on which the Government has an overwhelming majority, and that majority, judging by experience gained in the celebrated Bonking Committee, would be careful that only matter favourable to the views of the Government was given prominence. Their inlen ion was, by the aid of the majority that is still left to them, to force the Bill through Parliament without the parties principally interested having an opportunity of putting their case before the House which is to judge between them and the Hon. Mr McKenzie. The Government have overtaxed the loyalty of their followers over this Horowhenua business. So glaring is the injustice contemplated that some of them have preferred to face the wrath and electoral power of Ministers than to meet their constituents with the stigma of having perpetrated an injustice, and, what is more, of having ignored the laws of the country as laid down by the Judges who are paid high salaries to interpret them. To go back to the source of this trouble, the accusation against Sir Walter Duller is that he did not give the natives a sufficiently high price for their land. At the time Sir Walter Duller acquired the land it was quite open to the natives to have sold to anybody else hud a better price been offered. The principle, the Bill before the House will establish,if it passes is that any European who has bought land,at what subsequent events have proved was a low price, shall be liable to have his purchase upset by special act of Parliament, notwithstanding that the purchase was legal in every respect. The precedent is a most dangerous one and calculated to altogether upset confidence in a Crown grant. If the law has allowed an injustice to be perpetrated upon the natives, then the country should compensate them, but to confiscate a man’s property legally acquired is an idea that could only enter into the mind of a true Liberal of the SeddonMcKenzie type, who appear to bo quite callous as to ultimate consequences so long as they can gain their ends for the time being. The country had better pay the natives a thousand times over the value of the land than that such a Bill should become law.

typhoid fever. It will bo remembered that an outbreak of tho same disease, with fatal results, took place about a month back in Mr Ferguson's family, resident at tbo sttmo place. An inspection of Mr Ferguson's premises was made by the chairman of the local body and one of the members, who were unable to surmise any enuso for the family boing attacked. It was suggested by some that the mischief lay with the school tank, as only the children of Mr Ferguson who attended school were attacked, and the tank is stated to be in an uncleanly state. This may be the cause, but if so, how is it to be accounted for that only members of Mr Ferguson's family were attacked, On the other hand we learn that the natives have been suffering from a disease said to resemble typhoid in its symptoms. If this be so, it appears to us much more likely that it is from them that the disease hns spread. The germs of the disease are cleurly in the district, and it is of the utmost importance that a searching investigation should be made by a medical man, in order that the cause may bo ascertained and removed. Although the law imposes tbo duty of health officers upon the local bodies, it is absurd to act 1 upon the impossible proposition that tho members are possessed of the knowledge necessary to deal with cases of this sort. It cannot of course be expected that a competent man would undertake this work without a fee, and it would be equally unreasonable to call upon the local bodies to pay him out of their usually attenuated funds. This is a case in which we believe an appealshould be made to the Government to appoint and pay a competent man.