Evening post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1897. THE RELIEF TO PASTORAL TENANTS.

Evening Post, Volume LIII, Issue 3, 5 January 1897, Page 4

Evening post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1897. THE RELIEF TO PASTORAL TENANTS.

When in the winter of 1895 the country learned that disastrous losses had befallen many pastoral tenants of the South Island by reasori of the excessive snowfall, and consequent great mortality of sheep, it was generally felt that the Treasury might fairly grant some relief in the shape of abatement of rent to a most deserving class of settlers, many of whom had by an extraordinary and exceptional season been brought to the verge of ruin. When, therefore, during -the ensuing session of Parliament the Minister for Lands brought down a Bill to afford relief in such cases as might be thought worthy, the House cordially approved the measure, and tho country applauded a Government which upon that occasion at least appeared to rise above considerations of Party, and showed a desire as landlord to make remissions of rent to deserving yet unfortunate tenants, many of whom might fairly be supposed to be wanting in sympathy with the aims and methods of Seddonism. Here, at any rate, was occasion when adverse critics could not by any fair inference assume that the "spoils to the victors" system that Ministers have made so peculiarly their own could be applied, while their friends were naturally not slow to point with pride and satisfaction to an act of policy that showed the Government in the light of truly liberal legislators. Their thought was for the country rather than for Party, tender regard for misfortune rather than any hope or expectancy of reward in the nature of personal support by those who would be benefited ; yet by the irony of fate it lias remained for the Hon. John M'Kenzie to, in person, dissipate and destroy all this fair contention for a speoial act of political virtue. He has borne evidence of the most conclusive kind against himself and his colleagues to the effect that, while ostensibly performing an actof common fairness towards these stricken tenants of the Crown, they were expected to recant their political opinions, and in return give their undeviating support at the polls, regardless of their convictions, for the retention of power by the Seddon Government. It was at the now famous " Flatman Social" that the Hon. John M £ Ken2ie deposed to the unworthiness of his own disappointed hopes of what would flow from the relief he had secured for the pastoral tenants. We* will quote from the Geraldine Guardian,

which is the only journal, according to the Ministerial organ, that has fairly reported the Minister (though we may say, parenthetically, that the summary of the Press Association was in entire agreement with it). This, then, is what Mr. M'Kenzie said : — " They (the Government) had endeavoured during their term of office to do what they could, in the interest of the colony as a whole, but they had been very badly treated by two classes of the public at the elections. In the session of 1895, they would remember, the Government passed a Bill to give relief to pastoral Crown tenants, who lost a large number of sheep in the snow. The Government did this in the interest of the people as a whole, as they thought, but how had they been treated by the people they helped in time of distress? (A voice — Very badly.) Yes ; there might have been one or two exceptions, but generally speaking they fought tooth and nail against the Government." If there be any meaning in words — and the words we have quoted were those aotually employed — the Government apparently hoped and believed that the remissions made under the Pastoral Tenants' Relief Act, 1895, would operate as reward for political support to be given by a set of men who, by sentiment and conviction, were totally opposed to the maintenance in power of the existing Ministry. A good thing was done, but in the light of this remarkable evidence by the Minister against himself and his colleagues, can it be longer claimed that it was done wholly in the interests of the country ? Would it, indeed, have been done at all could its authors have known that these sheepowners would refuse to renounce their political convictions in return for the concessions to be made? What is this unworthy exhibition of morose spleen but an admission of the will to use the corrupting means to secure support with which the Government have been so often charged?