THE LAST STAGE OF HATUMA.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4307, 16 March 1901, Page 4

THE LAST STAGE OF HATUMA.

After more difficulties than any other of the seventy eases Of expropriation jmcsented, the Hatuma property is at last within measurable distance of the closer settlement for which it was acquired. As the Land Purchase Department takels possession on .the 29th of the current month, the- end of the last stage js clearly within easy reach. It is not strange, of course, that even this last stage has not been free from insidious attack on the compulsory resumption policy. The history of the Hatuma case is the history of a protracted fight with the law, which, beginning in 1895, did net end till 1900, on the 28th June, when the Chief Justice pronounced the award of the third Arbitration Court which had been set up to adjudicate upon the case of this particular property. What is strange is that anyone should have been taken in by the character of the last attack made from the side of the proprietor, upon the expropriation policy. The “Investors’ Review” enjoys the singular distinction of,having been so taken in. Hr Purvis Russell, after the award was given, hurled at the Government an offer of £60,000 to “ransom” the property, as he called it, and proceeded to further deliver his soul by advising the Government to induce ether proprietors, by means of Compensation Court awards, to offer similar ransoms, pointing out in his sarcastic way that thus the Government might got from a few proprietors hard cash enough to buy out the bulk

of the land-owning fraternity without costing the State a copper. This vapouring, not at all to to blamed in a disappointed man who had (6t Ins heart on founding a family OH tho ©state ho had acquired so easily in liifl youth, toe redoubtable Mr Wilson, of tho “Tnve--tors’ Review,'’ treated as serious. Ills paper actually informed the investing public that the offer of such heavy was proof positive that the c.-naie had been acquired at less than its iutvi-un value, and he,, accordingly, gravely eencludod that investment in New Zealand is m» longer safo. . As this oiler of alleged r.ia.-nn has hern taken seriously, it is perhaps necessary to treat it seriously. Certain yno other consideration would entitle it to any notice whatever. New, of all things that are clear, the clearest is tha* in making his offer Mr Russell must have known that its rejection was err!pin. It is, indeed, obvious that the Government which had proved in open (’ ivt that it had given full value Tor could not turn round in a moment and confess that it had robbed the proprietor of that beautiful estate with i’ll the forms of law. Therefore, the oner could not hav e been seriously intended. Under the circumstances it is not even evidence that Mr Russell thinks his property was acquired below its value. As a matter of fact, the award which gave him a little more than the tax valuation which ha had, paid for years, was made unanimously by tho ComvcKsatloi’ Gam*!. It follows that even Mr Russell's asp'-spor was convinced by the cvidoxc? that good value was given—as much convinced as Mr Purvis Russell himself, who had accepted it for tax wonderful that Mr Rusvcll should havo made a pretence of offering ransom, in order to embarrass the Government who had, for reasons of public policy, dispossessed him of his estate at full value. But that anyone cf any pretensions to reason should have founded a serious charge upon such a raeaning’c-s fanfaronade is amazing.