MOKAU AGAIN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7977, 7 December 1911, Page 4

MOKAU AGAIN

SPECIFIC CHARGES MR LOUGHNAN REPLIES TO MR MASSEY THE POSITION DEFINED PBESS ASSOCIATION. PALMERSTON, December 6. Mr C. A. Longhnan, solicitor tor tbe Mokau Company, writing to the "Manawatu Daily Times," takes np Mr Massey’s challenge made at Parnell , last night that there should be a definite charge regarding his attitude on Mokau. Mr Loughnau says; — | am not content to let the matter stand there, and propose to leave Mr Massey no possible loophole to escape from my charges, which I specify as follows : (1) That the statement that the 5021 acres actually became Crown land is untrue. (2) That the statement that it was available for settlement is untrue. (3) That the statement that the Government sold the 5021 acres to tbe company or to anyone else for 5s lOd per acre, or at any other price, is untrue. (4) That the often repeated statement that speculators made £60,000 profit out of the Mokau transaction is untrue. (5) That the statement that the Government could have taken either the freehold or the leasehold of the Mokau-Moha-kitina block, or any part of it, compulsorily is untrue. (6) That tho statement that the Governmentl ought to have purchased the freehold and leasehold interests in the Mokau block instead of allowing speculators to do so is untrue, inasmuch as tho Government was advised by its responsible officers that it could not safely give more than .£35,000 for the properties in question (see valuation attached to Mokau report), whereas the natives demanded £25,000 for the freehold and Mr Lewis ,£55,000 for the leasehold, making ■a total of £BO,OOO. (7) That the statement that Mr Lewie’s leasehold interests in the property had been held to be bad is untrue. (8) That the statement that tho difference between the price paid to the Maoris for the freehold and that paid by the company for both freehold and leasehold is all profit is untrue, and proceeds from the untrue assumption that Mr Lewis’s leasehold interests in the property wore valueless, it having been established and sworn to by Mr Jones at the Mokau inquiry that he had been offered £IOO,OOO for these very leaseholds by a London syndicate. (9) That Mr Massey's original statement to the effect that a second Order-in-Counoil authorising the Mokau Company or syndicate to purchase another native block of 17,00.0 acres was untrue, and supplemented by no foundation in fact whatever. (10) That the suppression by Mr Massey in his Palmerston North speech of the date upon which the Order-in-Connoil was agreed to be granted by the Cabinet was misleading and calculated to give tho public the impression that the gazetting of the Order-in-Council in the following March was the result of Mr McNab having joined the company as chairman in tho interval. I don’t know what particular facts the -Hawke’s Bay gentlemen were referring to when they expressed their opinion that Mr Massey’s statements were “'a- disgrace to party politics," but I do say that the above are tho circumstances 1. relied upon when I endorsed that opinion in my letter of this morning; and Mr Massey can take what change he can get out of that. C. A. LOUGHNAN. MR M'NAB’S POSITION MISSTATEMENT’S ENUMERATED. PRESS ASSOCIATION. PALMERSTON, December 6. Mr McNab, addressing a packed and enthusiastic meeting here to-night, referred further to the Mokau lands and his challenge to Mr Massey in that regard. He repe’ated that in stating that the Order-in-Council had not been granted until March, and that he (Mr McNab) joined the company in January, at the same time suppressing the fact that tho resolution for the issuing of the Order-in-Council had been passed in December, Mr Massey had been guilty of more than not being frank —lie bad been dishonest. . Mr Massey had, in replying to the, letter from Hawke’s Bay shareholders, asked that tne men who signed that letter should say where he had told falsehoods. He would enumerate those (to use Mr Massey’s own words) "falsehoods’ as follows;—■ (1) The statement that tbe 5921 acres were a few months ago the property of che dominion. (2) That those lands had been sold by the Government privately. t 3) That the land had been handed over to the company for fs.lOd per acre.