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Page, 236 a. You arc a Dominion vice-president of the Dominion Farmers' Union and a member of the Auckland executive ?—Yes. Two years provincial president of Auckland and the Auckland District, representing about four thousand farmers ? —Yes. Your union has been active 011 the general question of the danger of trusts to the producers for some years \ —Yes; we have been passing resolutions 011 the question for.ten years. Have you those resolutions ? —Yes. Mr. Skerrett: I object to these resolutions. Surely the general question of the evils of trusts ought not to be the subject of evidence. If the members of this Commission do not know what the evils of trusts are they are unfit to sit here, and it is perfectly idle that the money and the time of the country should be wasted by calling gentlemen who are officers of Farmers' Unions to tell us what we all know. There is no part of the order of reference that pertains to this —the only possible suggestion is paragraph Ib—the position of Vestey Bros. (Limited) in Poverty Bay as the then existing owners of other freezing-works. Surely this Commission is not going to embark in an investigation which will require the calling of a la.rge number of gentlemen farmers who have an objection to trusts and to tell you why they have such an objection and the nature of their resolutions. 1 mean 110 offence to the gentleman now in the witness-box. I have no doubt his views arc entitled to respect 011 the Page 237. question, but the general question is not before us. It is not a question of this one witness, if it was the matter would be negligible and no objection would be raised, but it is a question whether the time of the Commission and the money of the country are to be wasted in calling some ten or eleven (The Chairman : Eight, I think, and two in Gisborne) that will be augmented like a snowball, and if one gentleman is allowed to air his views before this Commission and in the papers other members of the unions will desire to give the same class of evidence. I submit, sir, that the right thing is to confine the evidence to the matters under inquiry. What would happen if this class of evidence were allowed ? There will be 110 end of it. Mr. Joh.nston : May I reply on this point. However much my learned friends may not desire to go into this question, we say that this is the very question the Commission is set up for. That is the very difficulty the Government had to meet and which embarrassed the Cabinet. That is to say, whether the rights of a mortgagee were to prevail over the restriction upon the alienation of these freezing-works. We say there is a restriction on the alienation of freezing-works. That is the point we want to make. The Government, we say, were placed in a very embarrasing position, and that position is clearly expressed in the correspondence that is before the Commission. While, sir, it may be that my learned friends think, and very properly perhaps, that the rights of a mortgagee, the rights of a bank, are so important to the community that 110 counter-interest should prevail, that perhaps was the view of the Government at the time. There is, however, another view—that the danger of these trusts is so great to the general body of producers that even the rights of mortgagees will have to give way to them. Now, sir, we suggest that this was the very difficulty that faced the Government. The farmers complain that their interests are being sacrificed for other interests, and we suggest that that is the reason that this Commission has been set up. The Government has been Page 238. accused of giving way, And the Minister also, and his plea is that the interest of the mortgagee is too sacred a thing to atvaefc. By giving way to that view they have sacrificed the interests of the producers. The question is ol so great importance that they thought this Commission was necessary. The question is bound to arise again, and the Government are entitled, and I presume desire, to get at the rights of the question. The question of public interest is, of course, difficult. It is obvious that Mr. Jolly, the manager of the National Bank, thought the interests of his shareholders, and his bank the public interest and not the producers of Poverty Bay. He may be right, but if he in any way misled the Minister of Agriculture he was wrong, and if he was mistaken in his view of the public interest, instead of doing a service to the country, he has done a disservice. Again, sir, it is obvious that the directors of the National Bank in London may take an entirely different view of what the public interest in New Zealand is from that of the producers, and therefore their instructions to Mr. Jolly would be tempered by their view, which would be the view ordinarily attributed to the banker. Now, sir, the question in the order of reference is whether, having regard to all the circumstances, the Minister of Agriculture in consenting to a transfer of the meat-export slaughterhouse license for the company's works to Vestey Bros. (Limited) acted in any manner contrary to his duty or contrary to the public interest. Now, sir, if the question before this Commission is, " Has he acted in accordance with or contrary to the public interest "—if that is the question you have to answer —must not the Commission know what the public interest in this particular matter was ? My friend says that we have to assume that you know what the public interest of this particular matter is. We assume that you know —and possibly we are all assumed to know and believe that trusts are illegal —I may believe that or I may not. Possibly some in this room think they are good for the country, but at the same time we are entitled to show that the public interest in this matter is not a matter of private opinion, but a published statement of the public interest. Page 239. Mr. Skerrett: It is a question of law. Mr. Johnston : I cannot see that it is.