GOVERNMENT POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 16, 20 January 1892, Page 2

GOVERNMENT POLICY.

(BY TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

Dunedin, this day. In his speech at Lawrence, the Hon. J. McKenzie dealt principally with the land policy. He said there was no intention to rob settlers of their holdings, nor a desire to interfere anywhere with those in possession of Crown lands. He had no doubt that large areas of land had come into tho possession of people in a manner that would not bear investigation if gone into. But these areas had been acquired in some shape or form under tho laws in existence, and he would be the last man in the colony to repudiate any bargain made under the law. They had a right, however, to say how the lands still left should be disposed of. Land laws in the past had not been satisfactory, in proof of which ho mentioned that forty-seven people were in possession of 3,000,000 acres of the best agricultural land in the colony. At the banquet the Minister of Lands spoke very briefly. Tho Hon. R. J. Seddon, in the course of his speech, said as regarded the taxation proposals, thoy were sound and reasonable, and there must be finality to them. Without it disaster would follow, and the Government had determined that there should ba finality: that the tax would not ba raised from Id to 6d, as their opponents prophesied, but that it should remain at Id.