The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1911, THE MOKAU ESTATE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1186, 22 July 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, JULY 22, 1911, THE MOKAU ESTATE.

-It is very satisfactory to noto the ferment that has been caused by Mr. Massey's references to the Mokau Estate purchase. From all directions the interested parties are pouring in explanations and protests, but most of these are quite beside the real point ;, af issue.' As'wo pointed out in our previous reference to the matter, it does not concern tho public very much, if at all, whether a private syndicate has succeeded in making a very good or a very bad. business speculation in land. _ What does concern them, however., is that the Government should have gone out of its way to afford special facilities for the alienation of this large area of Native land, and the manner in which tho Government carried through its share of the business. In another column we publish a long letter from Mn. Dalziell, of the firm of Findlay and Dalziell, solicitors for Mr. Hermann Lewis, the' gentleman who secured the Mokau leases, and who disposed of his interests, or a portion of them, to a Hawke's Bay syndicate, which in turn sold to the company of which Mr. R. M'Nab is chairman. Mr. Dalziell's version of his firm's connection with the matter is interesting enough in its way as indicating the lino which he deems it most advisable to take in the interests of his client. Since he has considered it necessary to raise the question of his firm's financial interest in the matter, he might have gone a step further and explained that one of the complaints raised by Mn. Jones was in reference to a mortgage for £1000 which Findlay end Dalziell held over their client's interest in the Mokau leases, this sum representing, we believe, the firm's claim at that time against Mr. Lewis for legal costs. But these matters have nothing to 'do with the real point at issue, and are only raised to obscure the questions which concern the public. All sorts of bogies have been trotted forward in an endeavour to show how very desirable it was that this sale of the Mokau lands should bo facilitated—in the interests of Messrs. Findlay and Dalziell's client.

It is quite proper that Me. Dalziell should endeavour to show how dreadful , the consequences would have been for everybody had his client failed to secure what he wanted in connection with the Mokau lands. And the dreadful possibility raised by Mr. Skerrett, too, on behalf of his clients, of a claim for £80,000 against the Land Transfer Assurance Fund respecting land which is now sold for little more than one half of that figure is quite in keeping with the fitness of things. These things are all part and parcel of the tactics of these legal gentlemen, and no one expects anything else from them. But, as we remarked before, what have they to do with the question at issue? We are prepared to assume that Messf.s. Findi.ay and Daij.ikix and their client were actuated only by the highest _ philanthropic motives in persuading the Government to grant them the special facilities which the law expressly provides shall only bo exercised under exceptional circumstances and in the public interest. Even then, however, the fa;t remains that the Government acted in a manner opposed to the public interest

and public policy, and contrary to its own professions. Why, if they desired to end all this trouble, .so vividly depicted by Mn. Dalziell—why did not the Government take over this land, as they had the power to do, themselves, instead of taking an exceptional course to enable a private individual or a private syndicate to do so! AVhy should not the Government have secured for the public the profits which we are told have now been made by these private individuals, who benefited by the. action of Ministers! What will the leaseholders who support (he Government say of this extraordinary departure of the Executive in going out of their way to facilitate the sale of the freehold of 50,000 acres of land in one block to a syndicate of land speculators'! We do not blame the speculators for making a good bargain, but why did the Government when it so obligingly waived the restrictions imposed by Section 196 of the Native Land Act "of HlO9 refrain from publishing the Order-in-Council notifying its intention to so act until the thirtieth of March last, when the order was passed on the fifteenth of March, and the land actually sold by the Maori Land Board, under authority of that order, on the ttccnty-Koml of March? In other words, the Order-in-C'6uncil which is required to be published to notify the public of the intention to take this exceptional course was not made public until after the course had actually been taken. Why 1 Probably we shall be able to force an answer to that question, nnd .to others relating to this very curious transaction, during the coming session of Parliament. In the meantime we are very pleased to note the extreme anxiety that is being displayed in certain quarters to show how very desirable a. thing it is that the ordinary restrictions imposed by the law should have been so obligingly waived by the Government to enable this huge block of Native land to he acquired by the client of Messrs. Findlay and Dalzieu,. The more the matter is discussed in public the more hopeful we are of that full exposure of the Government's actions which is essential to a clear understanding of the influences which govern the administration of the country's affairs.