WHY THE LAND BILL WAS LIST.

Evening Star, Issue 8808, 25 April 1892, Page 4

WHY THE LAND BILL WAS LIST.

At Milton, on Saturday night, the Minister of Linda addressed a large meeting (Mr Henry Clark presiding) on tho Ministerial policy. Tho hitter part of his address was devoted to an explanation cf the causes oi iiij.jirei:ment between the two Houses last session on his Laud 15*11. At tho close, Mr J.imes Allen, in response to loud calls, advanced to tho front of the hall, and was gieetad with loud cheers mingled with %c<u\z?; Considerable di wrder prevailed for gome time whiie Mr Alien and ths chairman v/tio engaged in conversation. O.der haviag be;n restored, The Minister of Lands returned tnanks for the voto that had been passod. li-o did not know, he said, whether Mr Allen wished to -p-ak. li he did he (Mr M'Kenzie) individuilly did not object, but bo claimed the privilege cf a reply. Tue Chairman remarked that Mr Allen had asked lfim if he would be allowed to address tho meeting, and ho (Mr Clark) had tidil him that the meeiiug was sailed by Mr M'Kenzie, and that the hall was engaged ;-knd would be p\id for by Mr M'Kenzie.— (Uproar, which rendered some further remarks by the chairman inaudible.) Mr Alien, who was roc ived with mingled oheera and groaus, having mounted the piiitfor'm, said he had a3ked the ch.iir::i*n whether ho might be permitted to say ;► iyw words in explanation of one poinfthat iial teen referred to that night. The ehatrjn»r» had refused him pscm;3iiion, but Mr

.•.1-Ji.eczie himself had been generous enough to ~:uend to him the leave he asked.— (A-ipUuse.) Now, one of the big guns who had been coming to tiro oil had ifired off to-ns-it.—(A Voice : " You're a big gun yourvtd.") The speaker wa3 safe behind hi 3 rampart, and it wa3 his rampart ho was '•;._. ;ng to speak about. He would net came there, but it had be ;n said that a remark he made t'ic other night was not true. Mr M'Kerz'.e had said iu.it tho real reason that the Iv-nd Bi ! .i was lost was not because of tho cbing away with tho to puruhaan iu t'-.o perpetual lease by item, but because t.f tho one man one ruu, and he (Mr M'lvjlzc) had to-night the right to reply to him, Before he (.Mr Allen) spoke about that, however,, let him remind them that the hnd admiiiittration that was now going on was nDt under Mr M'Kenz'e's Bill at all— (applause); and all tho good that was being deno under the L:;ul BUI at the present clay w»3, c xoept as regarded the administration, not due to the Minister, but to tho lav/ made in ISS7. (Applauae.) Ho was not goitg t> refer more to that, but he mu3t defend himself in reference to the statement that Mr M'Keuzie's Land Bill was lost en ncjouut oi the uue-man-one-run provision not heir,;,' arj't-rd to by the Legislative CuiiiciJ. H; had stated that if the Minister ha 1 been willing to give way regarding the perpetual I«j>-j;) Jo & certain degree the Bill migh: have been law, and ha was t;oing to defend that p.vision to-night. Ho was going to uive chapter and versa for what Ire had said. His chapter would be 'Hansard,' and his verse would be the page to it, and he would dhow them that the Bill was not loit on accouat of the one-man-one-ruu clause not being agreed to by the Legislative Council, but on acviunt of what he had etated the other night.—(A Voice : " Give him baans.") With regard to the question of one man one ran, if they would turn to ' Hansard' No. 15-J. session ii., 1*1)1, at pj<jo 573, they would n:id in the speech of one o? th<- members of tho [Toive—(A Vuljc : " Who?")—tha member vva.-i -Mr Hutchisoa—these remarks, with regard to clause 19;J: " Respecting that. I believe a compromise was atao possible in the directi'ju of retaining it with the proviso or condition that the one run should bo of the carrying capacity of some iiOjOOO sheep." Then an interruption took placo by Mr Duncan, who was a manager appointed by Mr M'Ke&zie, " Or an aggro<'it<V admitting that what Mr Hutchison aaia waa correct; and Mr Hutfchisoa said "I am glad of the correction the hon. member ?jr Oamaru wa3 one of the managers. ' That was not all tho evidence that he hj v\. At page SS7 of tho same • Hansard,' Air Uancan, who was appointed by Mr Sl'Konzie to take part in tin conference, and who was a practical farmer, made these i-.micbs: "First, with regard to the cjtema:. ■ mo-run cl4jjso— I do not think that wojiit nave been insisted on to any extent bv u'ne o-mferenoe." Tiiaft was the statement of Mr M'Kanziii'a own man who had charge ci.' the Bill. Mr Duncan went further than tfian that: "The difficulty in connection with that wculd have bsdn very easily got ova. There waa a tendency to give wuy on both tides, and to meet each other on every clause until we came to tho perpetual luaia clause."—(A Voice: " We've had all t!v.t in the 'TimeB 1 already.") He had q ioted the very words of Mr M'Kenzie'a o.vn manager to show that the Mfinister wap wrong himaeli in saying tu-nigrjfc that tho liill waa lost oo the onc-;nan one-run clause ; he had quotad thase words to show that the Upper House would willingly have given way in the conference over that matter. Mr Dunoan werfc on to Bay: " When we reached that clauae [the perpetual lease clause] the Hon. Mr SStvens, for the Legislative OounoU, said that the Chamber had expressed a very decided opinion upon the matter, and therefore they were not prepared to give way one bit. Thereupon it was stated by the managers for the House that there waa a very opinion in the House in favor of tRe clause, and therefore we should have to insist on the clauae." Let them mark these words of Mr Duncan which followed: "That was where the deadlock ccurred. Otherwise, I think we might have met one another in a give-and-take spirit."—(Applauao.) Now, he waa going to show still further evidence that it wj» the perpetual lease olauae on which the j Bill waa wrecked. |

'Re Minister of Lands : Read my speech, jVTr Allen. lie Allen said he would lot Mr M'Kenzle read his own speech when he replied, He would quote from 'Hansard,' p»ge 873: " Well, after all said and done, the point of differenoe between the Government and tho Legislative Counoil is as to the perpetual lease." . The Minister of Lands: Who is that ? Mr Allen said that waß Mr Hutohison again. ~?(A Voice a Tory.") No, Mr Hutchison was a member of the Minister's own party.—(A Voice: " Which Hutcbiaon ?") It was Mr George Hutchison. He was going to read another extraot—(A Voice: "We are about full up of you now.")—from the very jtro who was In

charge of tHfa BUI at the Conference, Mr Duncan; and he was going to read it to show that that member was of the same opinion aa he waa when he said the other night that the Bill ought not to have been loat but for the perpetual lease. Mr Duncan said: " I may Bay that personally lam not in favor of the perpetual lease pure and simple ; bu*, sir, after the strong opinions held by this Hou*o, I, us mauager for this House, stnok to my colors, and would also do so even against my own opinions." Ho had now points out that the Bill was loat through Mr M'Kenzie not seeing his way to give and take on the porpetual lease clause, The other side were willing to let the perpetual leass which Mr M'Kenzle wanted go alongside the perpetual leaso with the right of purchase in the samo Bill. What could have bsen moro reasonable than that ? It was not necessary that ho should detain tfiem to-night regarding his opinion of the perpetual lease with the right of purchase, as he had already expressed it. He only wished to make one moxe remark in reply to Mr M'KoDzie, because he knew that the Minister had quoted him nbaut " sly borrowing. " A Minister of theCro vm knew more about what was goiorj on in the Treasury than he diife but he must tay that the excuse about the LSOC',COO wus a little thin. Still, he must take the statement ub correct, but they nhould rememb;r that the amount that was supposed to he renewed from the Colonial, l}auk w,ih LIOO.OOO, and the new loan was | not L4'JO,OOO hut L500,0e0; and let him state tlit.", iliac another. Minister of the Crown, speaking in the North Island, said : "I suppose 1 am not disclosing Cubinet secrets if I tc*l you that the Government have had the greatest difficulty in knowing which of two b.inkn they should borrow half a million a 1; from 5 per ceut." Me had to thank Mr M'Konzio, who waa a personal friend of bin, for allowing him to make this explanation, and he was only sorry that Mr Clank did not, when he first came on tho platform, see his way to him the permission, and thus remove any iittle uoplea3antness that mir;ht have arisen.—(Applause.) The Minister of Lands said it would not tako him above two or three minutes to 'reply. There were juat three point 3 that were taken up by Mr Alien. One was where he stated that it was the one-man-one-run clause only which the Upper House would not agree to iu tho Land Bill. He admitted that; tho Upper House made the porpetual leaso the stalking horse, but the real object behind was the one man one run. —(Applause.) Mr Allen was not in the Hou3e, and did not kupw what had taken place, but he had quoted statements made by Mr Hutchison, who was the membermost hostile to the Bill, and he had also quoted what; Mr Duncan bad said. Would thoy permit him to read what ho himself said in replying to Mr Hutchison: •* What am I asked ta do this evening ? To hand over my Land Bill to ita enemies. That is what lam asked to do. If this decides that I am to hand over my Land Bill to its enemies here and in the other Chamber, then I shall have to consider my position. There can be no doubt about that matter at all. The bon. member for Waitotara got up in his place this evening and he told this Houso a sort of a a£ory of what took plaqo at the Conference. Now, the Conference met last night. The hon. genilemau wis not there, an.d he did not knew what too>. place. They distinctly decided to do this: to discuss each clause freely and propose considerable amendments in these clauses, and no one wa3 bound by any of these propositions unless it was a fiuil decision." There we»e nineteen amendments altogether, and he believed that nine or ten of these would havo beon agreed to; but not one of the five clauses he had spoken of, upon which there was a disagreement between the Upper and Lower Houses, was fiually decided about by tho Conference. When the House was asked by Mr Hutchison's motion to take the Bill out of his (Mr M'Keczis'e) bands, he dhtiuctly told the House that if the motion was canted he would bo no longer Minister of The House backed him up, aud the statements read ly Mr Alien were simply statements made by other members—one of them being the member who was most hostile to the Bill in the House, Mr Hutchison. Mr Aden also told them that the whole of the settlement that waa taking place at tho present time was under of JSS7; but he mi»t be ignorant of the fact that he (Mr M'Kenzle) had, eu;3o ho exiiie into nflioe, iutroduced homestead regulative, *hiih were first published in Deoc'inbar, IS3I. N\>w there had

t)Eca 1,710 puopLi put ou the land last year ur.iler tntie regulations.—(L,iud applaute.) With regard to the borrow iug question, the statemcui he had made was orrcot. Tiie nmouut wis tx.ictly v.hat lie had etatud, bjcau-ic he had it uo; b.ter than thfl previous day from tlie Tiea»urer.—(A Voice : " What oil the other Ministers say ?") The amount was L4CO 000 and a inillijn, though it originally way L 500,000,