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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9243, 21 December 1888, Page 4

It has been well said that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." T' ie same remark is true of many of our religious, educational, and charitable trusts and trust funds. If the public would enjoy their benefits, or see them fairly and faithfully fulfilled, they must be eternally vigilant. When one looks round Auckland and its suburbs, and remembers some of the trusts existing a third of a century ago, what they were and what they are, he is tempted to moralise whether the Ten Commandments are a failure-. In some cases these trusts have been simply blottia out, in others diverted to purpose, never contemplated, in a snaiwr portion the trusts and the iunds have been allowed to slip out or public view and into oblivion, ana ■ the facts are only known to some half-dozen people versed in the history of Old Auckland. The mode of action adopted varies. Sometimes a masteny inactivity prevails for a long series or years, and then when the pear is ripe, or, as Te Whiti would say, "the potato is cooked," it drops -into waiting lip. At other times there is a scramble io

;he plunder, and where the carcase is there are the eagles gathered together, jlost of these trusts were made by Sir George Grey, in his first Governorship, and it must give the "errand old man" many a heartache to see what has come over them now. Auckland is not the only place where these things are done. In Wanganui there is one so glaring that the first thing a visitor to the district is shown is the endowment, and told the story of how it was scooped. At Wellington there are several cases, and Sir George Grey intends next session, if possible, to upset one nice little arrangement. In Canterbury and Otago it is the saine story—all arising from the want of "eternal vigilance. So numerous are those trust scandals that last session of Assembly it was contemplated by some reforming inembers to move for a Boyal Commission to inquire into the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of the various trusts where Crown lands or public money were involved, and compel their being honestly carried out, or quashed, and the trusts thereupon administered by the Government, if such a Commission would dare to disclose the facts in the face of the ecclesiastical and social pressure which would be brought to bear to avert such disclosure, the report would be the liveliest reading the New Zealand public would have seen form any a long day.