WELLINGTON NOTES.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 276, 19 April 1898, Page 3

WELLINGTON NOTES.

[froii our own correspondent I. Wellington, April 12. JOCK PLKADS IGNORANCE. The two Ministerial missionaries, one at each end of the colony, have had a hard road to hoe in excusing their misdeeds. If they could be believed at all by ai>y one not entirely dense, they have for seven years been martyrs to the Opposition newspapers and a Conservative Press Association. But as the newspapers and the association report them more fully than their constant reiteration ot their moral rectitude entitles them to, it is rather rough on the journalists if they decline to believe that all the Sedilon and McKeuz : e geese are swans. And the way these statesmen make assertions in flat defiance of known facts is suggestive of the plea of the washer woman summoned for the return of some clothes or their value to the amount of £lO. The plea ran : 1. I never had the clothes. 2. If I had them I returned them. 3. If I didn't return them they were stolen from me. 4. If they weren't stolen from me then their value was not £lO, but lOd. 5 1 counter claim 17s 6d for washing them. As an illustration of this method of defence the Hon. John McKenzie gave an instructive example in a speech at Invercargill a few days ago when defend ing the purchase of the Otahu Estate fioin Batger and Menzies, the former of whom is brother-in-law to the Hon. J. G Ward, and jointly with Mr Lee-Smith endeavoured to buy the assets of the "\Vizard,"but the offer was refused by the Court. In passing it may be mentioned that Mr Lee-Smith had a trip to Canada, which cost the colony £IOOO, about the same time In his Invercargill speech Mr John McKcnzie is reported to have faid : "IS'o member of the Government knew who were offering the Otahu Estate, or who the owners were before it was purchased." It is only charitable to surmise that the cares of State had driven from his memory the correspondence which was submitted to him on the subject ; or that he was not aware that the said correspondence had been printed and issued as a State paper—csa during his pilgrimage in the South ; or he may have estimated the intelligence of his audience at Invercargill at the value people here do of democrats who make beasts of burden of themselves to glorify their idol Ward. Whatever induced him to make the assertion it is fully and completely contradicted by the return from his own department. The correspondence begins with & letter from Messrs Watson and McNab, Invercargill, addressed to the chairman of the Land Purchase Board, Wellington, dated November 28th, 1896, as follows :—" Sir, —We have the honour, under instructions from Messrs Batger and Menzies, to place under offer to the Board for acquisition under the Lands for Settlements Act their Otahu property." The offer went on to describe the land as consisting of 6000 acres, which they offered at 27s 6d per acre, pointing out that it had previously been mortgaged for £II,OOO and valued at £12,148, and since which valuation the owners had spent £2OOO in improvements, and that several people anxious to settle had asked the owners to cut the place up. On April sth, 1897, a long report was made by C. C. Sproull, valuer, supplemented by an estimate for loading, surveying, etc., £llsO, signed by D. Barrow, Chief Surveyor. Up to this poiut there is no correspondence direct with the Minister, although the Land Purchase Board and the Chief Surveyor are under the Ministerial supervision of the Hon. J. McKenzie. But, as during the period between November and April the general election took place, and a consequent press of work in satisfying true Liberals for services rendered, it is possible that the Ministerial mind was temporarily unhinged. But this plea will not serve with the rest of the published correspondence. On April 12th the Land Purchase Board addressed a memo, to the Minister of Lands, recotnmendiug the Government to acquire the land at 25s per acre. On the 20th April Mr James McKerrovv, Land Purchase Inspector, also wrote a memo, to the Minister, which begins with this statement. :—" The Otahu Estate of 6049 acres, the property of Messrs Menzies and Batger, is situated in the Waiau Valley, Southland." This memo, is countersigned, " For Cabinet. J. McKenzie, 21st April, 1897," and aaaiu, "In Cabinet, 26th April, 1897.—Purchase of 6049 acres at £1 53. Approved.—A. Willis, Secretary." It is impossible to make Mr John McKenzie's assertion •• that no member of the Government knew who were the owners" fit in with Mr McKerrow's memo, and the approval of the purchase by the Cabinet. Moreover, the purchase was not completed until the fo'lowing August ovving to a mortgagee having first to be satisfied. There was no reason whatever to purchase this land. It is situated on the outside limits of settlement. Immediately beyond it are the everlasting mountains reaching to the West Coast; it adjoius Merrivale, another Lands for Settlement job of 10,000 acres, upon which the settlers are in despair ; it is mostly a shingle river bed unfit for cultivation and badly infested with rabbits and remote from a market, but it belonged to a friend of Mr Ward and a general election was on, therefore the Minister and the Land Purchase Board, which is the Minister's echo, bought it with borrowed money and the colony pays the interest. THE LABOUR PARLIAMENT. Just at present there are twelve patriots sitting as a Trades' Councils Conference in Wellington. They hail from the four chief cities and Invercergill, and they have ambitious ideas. Their first day was taken ,ip in preparing their *' Order Paper," and an aweinspiring paper it is. There are 25 subjects for discussion, the passing of any one of which would be a feat for the Parliament we recognise. Among them figure the inevitable Old Age Pensions, the Masters and Apprentice, Eight Hours, and Wages Protection we knowso well, and some new stinging nettles for employers, such as a Minimum Wage Bill, Government Tailoring Workshops, Preference by Government to Unionists, Gumdiggers grievances, and so forth. British statesmen may wrestle unavaiL ingly with less troublesome measures than these, but the twelve apostles of labour have no misgivings of their ability to settle all the 25 items in a week. Moreover they decline any help. The Industrial Association here, a body which is composed mainly of employers, courteously suggested that six delegates should be appointed from each side to work together in a friendly spirit, but this was refused by the noble representatives of the working man, because there would not be lime to coufer on account of the lengthy Order Paper. This in eminently foolish on the part of the Conference, because if it succeeds in polishin? off all the 25 measures in one session there will be no need for any future Labour Parlianment. The policy will be exhausted and the fees and salaries of Presidents and Secretaries who live on the subscriptions of the Unionists will cease. An able Australian legislator recently said : " Any political change that, instead of taking one step forward, would take a hundred at one time, would, in its practical results cause such a fearful political cataclysm that the country would probably be sent further back than when it started." But our Conference hoists its banner with the device " Who's Afraid," and being backed by Ministers in its career of sowing discord and beinjj composed of agitators by profession it must run its course. It is very significant that the

members went into Committee twice so as to exclude the reporters, because certain confidential correspondence between the Government and themselves had to be read. It will be for some member of onr recognised Parliament to move for this confidential correspondence to bo laid on the table.