The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1892.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 212, 6 September 1892, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1892.

Fcr the cruise that lacks assistance, For the wrong that nseds resistanct, For the fattuo in tho dlstanoe. And the good that we can da.

Dummyism is the name for a purely colonial practice, which Las- for many years been a difficulty with land administration in all the Australasian Colonies. The practice may be explained in this way :—Mr McFloece is a large landowner who desires to increase the size of his estate by taking up lands adjoining his own. But as the land regulations usually allow only a limited area to be taken by one person, such area to be occupied by him in a more or less loose fashion, Mr McFleece finds it difficult to get hold of the land he wants; so he induces Brown, Jones, and ltobinson to take up the land, and for a time to occupy it, fulfilling just as little of the conditions as will pass muster at the Crown Lands Office. Then the sham occupants, who are "dummies," sell out to Mr McFleece, who adds the lands-to his estate.

This is one form of dummyism, but only one, for dummyisrn has so many forms, and is practised under so many disguises, that to check it has taxed to the utmost the skill of every Minister for Lands in.all the colonies. One of the forms of dummying in Mew Zealand has been brought to light by an action at law in the Supreme Court at Dunedin, in G. R. Scott v. the National Mortgage and Agency Company.- The evidence, cross-examinations, the speeches by counsel, the summing up and the decision by Judge Williams, who tried the case, have been fully reported, and have been printed as a Parliamentary paper, and presented to the House.

It appears from this report that the National Mortgage and Agency Company were running a number of sheep and cattle on run 93A in the Lake Ohau district, the lease of which would terminate about January, 1891. The Company rinding it inconvenient to remove the sheep and cattle before the end of the lease, desired to make an arrangement for a further term of six months, to give them time to remove the sheep and cattle. The run, which had hitherto contained 21,000 acres, had 126,000 acres added to it, and was to be offered at auction on lease for ten years, with the usual conditions of keeping down rabbits, etc.

The increased area and the conditions did not suit the Company, especially as the added area was very poor, hilly country, and was swarming with rabbits. ,They wanted the run for six months only, and to get that, they appear from the evidence to have called a Mr G. R. Scott, a commission agent at Dunedin, to their aid. Mr Henderson, one of the managers for the Company, has an interview with Mr Scott, which appears in the evidence as follows . — ■ .:••

Mr Scott: " Henderson sent for me and said, fWe want to go in for a run,' and wanted me to bid for it at auction, for which I was paid (£ls or £30)." Mr Henderson's evidence is practically, the Company undertaking to pay the first six months' rent, to the same purport. At Henderson's request Scott signed a telegram to the National

Mortgage Company's agent at Timaru to bid at auction for the run, which was knocked down to him. The evidence shows that the whole affair was managed by the Company, Scott sending the necessary telegrams as drafted or directed by the Company, they paying the first six months' rent. During this six months the Company removed their cattle and sheep, and appear to have thought that they had done with the run.

Shortly afterwards Scott was sum" moned and fined for not clearing off the rabbits from the run and saw Henderson about it, who said they would see him through it, and Ritchie (Henderson's superior officer in the Company's service) wrote on the back of a telegram Scott had received what he was to say in reply. Then a policeman turns up and makes a demand on Scott for the fine. On Scott seeing' Ritchie about the payment of the fine, that gentleman told Scott to put him off as long as he could. Logic, Scott's clerk, gives conclusive evidence showing that he sent various telegrams dictated by Henderson, manager of the Mortgage Company, paid cash in connection with run 93A and debited it to the Company.

Up to November, 1891, there had become due to the Crown, rent £*9°> penalties amount for destroying rabbits / 4 r5, total By this time, however, the National Mortgage Company, instead of " seeing Scott through it," left him in it. On December 4th, [891, the Sheriff of Otago arrested Scott and lodged him in the common gaol until payment of the be made, or until he could find bail lor payment. Scott, on the same day, asked Henderson, of the National Mortgage Company, to find bail for him, but without result, further than that, at Henderson's suggestion, Scott's lawyers wired to Ritchie, at Timaru, manager of the National Mortgage Company, as follows:—"Scott arrested this morning at suit of Crown for on account of Run (93A). Hemust remain in gaol unless bail be given. Please wire advising what is to be done." On December 7th Ritchie replied, "(We) have nothing to do with Scott whatever. Have paid tr.rn in full for such use as we got of his run." The admitted pleadings show that no payment whatever had been made to Scott.

Scott then managed in some way or other to get out of gaol and commenced an action against Ritchie, Henderson, and the National Mortgage Company to recover the amount due to the Crown with damages. The record of the evidence and the speeches of counsel at the trial covers 56 pages of the Parliamentary paper. The case affords an unpleasant display of attempts at evasion, questionable morality, and legal quibbling.

Then, after all the shuffling had ended, the whole matter is ably summed up in the judgment given by His Honor Mr Justice Williams. From this judgment we make the following extracts:—" The run was taken up in Scott's name with the Company's money. The Company treated the run in all respects as their own. It was occupied by their stock under the supervision of their own people. Scott was merely a passive instrument in the hands of the Company; he never interfered in any way with the run; he did what the Company told him, and they acted in respect of the run without consulting him in any way. If the Company had taken up the run in their own name, they knew that the Crown would have held them to their bargain. If, however, the run was taken up in the name of a private person, they assumed that he would be allowed to throw it up without objection, as had always been the case in the past."

His Honor gave judgment for the plaintiff (Scott) against the National Mortgage Company for the Crown's claim of with costs on the highest scale, about £$00' and *c Plaintiff's' expenses on account of his being put in gaol, etc., and that the defendant company do indemnify Scott against all actions, suits and demands which may be made on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, in respect of the rent and cost of clearing off the rabbits for the remainder of the ten years' term of lease.

And so this attempt to entrap a man by a powerful company ended, and ended in a way which will be approved by every man who desires to see an innocent man escape, and powerful schemers punished. This result is doubtless due to the resolute action taken by the Hon. Mr McKenzie, the present Minister for Lands, for, as the Judge observed, people taking up runs in this way had been allowed to throw them up, " as had always been the case in the past."

That does not say much for the administration of Mr McKenzie's predecessors. No wonder the great companies do not like Mr McKenzie's way of holding the scales even, and compelling the nominally wealthy but really powerful companies to fulfil their just obligations. No wonder they hate the Ballatice Government, with such a Minister pf Lands, and threaten to withdraw their own money—or other people's—from the colony if they cannot have the liberty to do as they please, as heretofore. We have always held that the way in which great foreign companies of various kinds have been allowed to acquire or control, under various devices and pretences, enormous areas of land, as well as many other things in this colony, has long been a public danger. Great companies have run riot in New Zealand. If they are allowed to go on unchecked, every ship on the sea, every sheep on the land, will be under their control, and private enterprise will be destroyed.

The thanks of every good citizen will be heartily rendered to the Hon. Mr McKenzie for the courageous stand he has made against the greedy encroachments, unscrupulous actions and remorseless tyranny of one of the great companies. A few more such exposures, and the incubus which has been making many hard-working people little better than slaves, and which has been crushing individual enterprise in the colony, would give promise of coming to an end.