THE HON. MR M'KENZIE.—A REFUTA-

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9140, 12 June 1891, Page 3

THE HON. MR M'KENZIE.—A REFUTA-

TION. TO THE EDITOR.

Sin,—l am one of the victims of the so-called " retrenchment" ol the Hon. tbe Minister of Landi. I do not make any comphint on this icoro, but I do most omphatically object to his perambulating the colony at the public cost, making untrue statements to the effect that I have been eatiog the bread of idlcni.'Bß and drawing the public money for years without earning it. In matters within my own knowledge Mr M'Kenzie's statements are utterly untrue and misleadiog, and as the numbers of palpable inaccuracies are all calculated to support his own case aud in justification of his own actions, it is very hard to believe that they are simply mistakes and not wilful miaetatements.

There is something amusing in tin? delight with wbieh the soi aiaant " Liberal" press of the colony have received his Pftlmerston utterances and characterise!) them as " triumphant vindication," " proofs up to the hilt," &c , So., when there ia not one atom of vindication or proof in the whole thing. It is simply a piece of special pleading, aud if the otateiueiits as to matters with which 1 am notconveraant are as complete misrepresentations of fp.cts as I know a good part of the spßech to bo, I do not hesitate to say that no more misleading or untruthful addreis was ever made by any politician in the colony. His " hard facts "in connection with tbe work in the Invercargill Land Office are timply not facts at all. He Btatea the work done per day bb about 14 receipts, a little over 20 entries in the books, four letters received, four despatched, about 1£ applicants |fur land, and in addition a few printed returns to fill in for the month and the minutes of the meetings of the Waste land Board to be kept. The coßt of this work ho puts down at £2223 per annum. If this statement is not a deliberate attempt to mislead, it only shows Mr M'Kenzle's utter ignorance of what he is talking about. This £2223 consists of the salaries of tho whole field and offico staff of the Survey and Land departments combined, including the chief surveyor and Commissioner of Crown Lands, the district Surveyor, his cadet, tile land transfer draughtsman, the draughtsman and computer, the assistant draughtsman, the Crown landj ranger and steward of village Battlements, the receiver of land revenue, tha law office clerk, the messenger, and the woman who scrubs out the offices. To be correct, ihere is a discrepancy of £S between the Minister's figures and mine. The duties mentioned r.y Mr M'K-nzw, excent perhaps a few of the letters (none of which, by the way. were printed, an erroneously Btated by him), have been done by two only of theae personß, nod tbone two have been fully occupied by far the greater Dart of their titan with o«.t'r work which Mr M-Kenzie anivenlautly ignore!. In the first plane, the 14 receipts have to be)written three times ovnr',( making 42); correct copies of altcashbooks (li .c) duly certified and supported by vouchers fur every receipt and payment have to bo sont to the Treasury weekly ; accounts of deforn d payment aud perpetual lease "thirds have to bo Kept with every road board and county council in the district, nnd some of 'the municipaliti-a ; perpetual leases, deferred piymont licenses, occupation und other licenses Cm duplicate or triplicate ) have to be prepared and registered ; schedules of Crown grants

have to be prepared, these involving detailed lUts of every payment made) for tlie Information of the Treasury; volumlnouß quarterly mid annunl returns havo to be made, and numorous other returns are required ttnrlnfr the year for the hend oflioe ; thousands ot notices are nnnually sent out to runllolders, defcrrod-payiiip.nt and perpetual lleenies and holders of occupation licenses, Ha. ; an txaotliig public him to bo waltQ'l on nt al! hours, this last frequently a good part ot one elerk'B daily work ; Indexing up and keeping of records not emiraora'ed by this Mlnlstw, I the checking of work done In tlio ollicß, otton amidst constant interruptions, and n hundred and (mouther matters which havo to bo attended to In every ollice. There are nearly 1400 opm aeoounta In the books against aolectora and others, and any one who has the smallest knowledge of ollice work will Beo the utter absurdity of the Minister's precis of the work e°en If ho had had the common honesty to state its actual coat, Instead of, to tiokle the enra of lilb audience and excite the laughter with which I see he was created, multiplying It more than 10 times oven. And then, forsooth, IJaeo that he attempt ato pose sb a " fair " man, and Baya that " in order that he might not do any Injustice or show It in any raise colours, he might aay that the month of February (from which his note, are taken) did not quite come up to the average." He Btatea aleo that It had been a matter of wonder to him ns to what the officers could ilnd to do from morning to nhtlit. Why in the name of all that is good did he not devote a few mlnul.es to a visit to the office to see? He never looked lnaide the door, but took his information from the man In the street, and only subsequently made aome few inquiries In order to present hia garbled statement to his Palmerston audience. Should the principle applied by Mr M'Kenzle to the Invercargtll Land Office be applied to the other offices of the Government, there 1b no doubt whatever that a thousand or two more civil servants can be dispensed with Rt once; and If private offloes of all kinds could only bi run on tho same linea tho market would bo flooded with swarms of unemployed clerke to-morrow, lam fully aware that a civil servant is looked upon by a considerable portlouof the public as a loafer " exofflolo " as It were j but I can eafely refer to ray charactered antr cedenti both before and since I have been in the service to prove that Ido not belong to thiß olaia. I could also auffloiently prove that I have worked hard and honestly during my whole rervloe, have on numeroui oouaslons had special oommendatlon from my official heads for industry and competency, and have had quite enough work for any man to do. Inde°d the only time during which I have lost a single day during my 15 jeais' Government Bervice except from accident haß been when I was, about 18 monthß since, after Buffering considerably, peremptorily ordered a chance by my medical attendant for " necrasthanla and general debility, caused by over-work and too close confinement to the office." Thus much I must Bay in justice to myself. Mr M'Kenzie's lirßt report to the preßS some weeks sinco, when attemptirg to justify his aotion in regard to tho Invercarglll Land Office waa a tissue of raitstatements. He stated the amount coming In annually as £17.000 During the last Qoanoial yeßr I gave receipts for £27,800 Hi lid. He stated that " the £6000 from pastoral rents are paid on two days In the year ;" as a matter of fact they are paid on about 20 days In the year. He also stated tnst "the £5000 coming from deferred payment and perpetual lea«es are paid, as a rule, on two days in the year." There is no truth whatever in this; the payments are spread pretty equally over the whole year. It la curioua to see how thiß •' fair man who wi-hes " not to do any injustice or show ie in any false colourß " mskea all his conspicuous "errors on the ono side. The work of the Invercarglll ofhoe la much in arrear, and the one clerk who Is left can no more keep it from falling rapidly further back than he can fly, although there is no man in New Zealand better up to hia work, The Minister In his recent tour down South did not come near the land office at all. Ho "ran "the district in company with his friend and prevloua correspondent, Mr D. Campbell, and a few other kindred spirita. His statement that te only knew Campbell from the fact that on a previous occaasion ho waa acting in the capao ty of Crown lands ranger will not be extensively believed In Southland in the light of the most effusively friendly greeting with which the two met In public at the railway station on hiß arrival, and of other well-known circumstances. He says he had also been told that the reason why Mr Oampboll'i services were dispensed with was that he had performed his duty too faithfully. Probably he waa so told by Campbell himself, but he need not have swallowed the ataleraeut as he appears to have done. I know it to be utterly untrue. I know the whole circumstances connected with Mr Campbeirs retrenchment, and I know that Mr Spence, on urgent pressure from Wellington to reduce the cost of hh department, suggested that the police, at a much IeBB expense, could probably bok after the forests in their respective dutnets better than a man who might have to be 100 miles off while robbery was going on; and as Mr Spenee, from numerous circumstances which he mentioned to me, did not consider Campbell to be a suitable person for the position, he therefore recommenced the alteration which was made afterwards by the Governrneut. Whether this wrs an error of judgment or not may be open to question. but at any rate the suggestion of Campbell'B discharge did not oom* from the Government. He himself well knows this, as probably does his Mend the Minister. Mr Spence's subsequent testimonial was no doubt a mistake. He worded It most guardedly, so as not to commit himself. He did not doubt Campbell1; capacity for the duties he had to perform, and I never heard auy doubt expressed of his profuse urbanity. Other qualities than these are, however, required in a ranger. Mr Sponce. out of pure good nature, cave him tho bost character he could, and I am sure would be glad to see him get on. The " testimonial" of Mr MNab is no more atf etlmomal than would be a certificate that Campbell had not been in gaol; and although Mr Pearson's testimonif.l i» flatteriDg, it refers to a period several yeara back and per sc, and in the light ol subsequent events, Bhould now have much weighty V> here the " proofs "are of Mr Swunce's maladministration of the btate forests I do not think the public can jet tee very plainly, ill' M'Kenzie's assertions are not always (not to put too fine a point on it) strictly free from exaggeration at any rate, as I think I have shown; and hit statements as to Me Spenee are probably about on a par with, forinotnnce, hiß precis of the invercargill Land Office work and its cost. The assertion that Mr Spence had anything whatever to do with allowing the monopoly of the State f orals is totally without foundation. The published regulations under which these areas were acquired by various peraona did not impose any conditions whatever aB to working, nor was there anything to prevent the various owners from transferring their rights to the company of which Sir Robert Stout is chairman. As a matter of fact, Mr Spei.ce, of his own motion, when the Government were contemplating the issue of fresh timber regulations for the colony and sent him down from" Wellington a rough draft for suggestions, drafted stringent clauses to prevent areas being taken up for speculative purposes, which he added to the Government draft, and these clauses (in Mr Spence's own words) are now part of the regulations in force. When the New Zealand Pine Company some tiraa since made application for nn additional B aw mill area—they already holding a very large area of bush land-Mr Spence referred the matter to the present Government, and was by them instructed to grant the additional area. This is a. fact, and not one of Mr M'Kenzie's kind of fac's either The other monopolist referrad to by Mr M'KeDzie (ho makes no special reference in his speech to the much larger monopoly held by the company of which Sir It. Stout ia chairman) aeouireahla areas in a similar manner, strictly according to law, and it being out of Mr Spenca'. power to prevent him. Mr M'Kenzie'a statement that land with timber on it to the value of £3 an acre had been aold for 12a fid per acre for cash is perhaps one half true inasmuch as the land referred to was sold at 12a 6d per acre. As far as the £3 is concerned. Ido not believe it is true. I have recrived the money for scores of bush areas for sawmill purposes In fur more convenient positions than this, and I never saw anything like £t per aore obtained for tho timber on any one of them, Hut be that as it may, to charge Mr Spence with this is just an instance of the fairness which I have eulogised in Mr M'Kenzie In the earlier part of this letter. The land in question had been for many years open to all applicants at £1 per acre and wa» not taken up. On the coming into operation of •' The Land Act 1877 " Mr Spence was aiked by the Government to clasßlfy the untold lands in the district, with the view of having them gazetted open under the act. My impression is that the information was urgently required at once, as Mr Spence and I. and another were engaged until nearly midnight one night in compiling it, and I do not think the Government intended that Mr Spence should personally inspect each section, which would have taken weeks to do, but that he should atate their value from his general knowledgo of the oountry. The sections were accordingly valued at 12a 6d per aore, and so gazetted by the Government. Shortly after thia and before the 45 days had expired after which the. lands would be open, Mr Spence ascertained that although the land had been unsaleable for many years at £1 there was goi:d tirab3r on it which ought to bo worth more, b:ought the matter before the Waste Land Board, and a resolution was passed that the Minister be requested to withdraw the Gazette notice opening the land for sale. This resolution was duly forwarded to the head office, and in due course a reply was received that the Gazette notine would atand, This is the whole history of the case, and ia all within my own knowledge. The attempt to make capital against Mr Spence out of the sawmillers' illegal advertisement is extremely thin. If the duties of commissioner of Crown'Landa included procuring nil the up-country prints and carefully studying the advertising columns, they should have been told so. It probably never occurred to any commissioner in the colony before, and Mr M'Kenzie himself would never havo thought of it, if the thing had not been | brought before him by Boma malcontent, Mr M'Kenzie's subsequent advertisement did not tell manvof the public what they did nos know before, for the office was constantly in the habit of issuing firewood licenses over sawmill areas. Had Mr Spenca's removal from the charge of the Southland district, one of the principal ones in the •olouy, been to another dietiict of equal importance, I know that he would have gone; uut wheuitwM to the most unimportant district in New Zealaud it is hardly to be wondered at that he preferred to resign When a man has worked faithfully and energetically in the service of the Government for tho greater part of a lifetime, and is reduced in the aervice on account of the uuinvestigated complaints of such "gentleman" as were known to have gathered round the Miniiter when he was here for the purpose of damaging Mr Spence in the eyes of the Government (I am not of tboße who would deny the title of gentleman to many men with hard hands and Bhabby clothing), it does not seem to me that he has received the fair pliy to which every innn U entitled. Mr M'Keuzia and the "Liberal" press in general seem to think that as his Balary was not reduced ha had no grievance, and thiß ia the opinion you might expect from a man who sacs no Insult in asking honourable men to make a declaration that they have not assisted in perpetratiug a fraud. I could not conceive the offensive circular in which Mr M-Keuzle demands this of the officers of tha department eniauating from gentlemen like Mr Tercy •inilth or Mr M'Kerrow. If the Minister had wißlied impartially to state both sides of the case in defendne himself in the matter of Mr Camt bell's substitution for Mr Mueaen, he would have taken care to state when giving Mr Muisen's age ,'aa,6o that Mr Campbell was verf slightly, if at all. hia junior Mr Mussen is au old Waikato trooper who served in the New Zealand war, is a good horseman, and is thoroughly capable of travelling on horseback any distance that might be required. I challenge the statement that the telegram of Messrs Kelly, M'lntosh, and Ward, "proves that the appointment of Mr Campbell is app-oved by tho people!" It proves nothing at all. The so-called "Liberal" papers, while discussing freely every other portion of tha acoußations of Mr Speuce and the Miuißter'a reply, hava been ominously silent ss regards KCr Campbell's character and qualifications. I am not aware of a single person in Southland at thia moment who believes that any qualification but hia friendship for the Minißter had anything to do with his appointment. In my own cubb I am fully aware that, quite apart from retrenchment, pressure was brought to bear upon the Minister to dismiss me He would hardly deny thiß, and he is not the only member of the Ministry who 1b aware of it, and who ia aware also of the Bhsdy character of the persons who used then influence against me. However, as I said before, I made no complaint on account of my disclwge. 1 have long held the opinion that the civil service, at at present constituted and ruled, is no phce fore man who is worth hia salt. The only cause of mj writing this letter ia to d( fund myself against tlii unwarrantable .npimtinus of the Minister of Lands and an lam probably the only man. except oneor twt members of the civil service whose mouths ar« closed, who ißin a position to ilatly contradict 'co mi of hlsaisertions. which I think in fairness should noi no unchallenged, to enlighten tha public in regard ti some of his mlsstatcrnenta. I have read this lette carefully over before Bending it. and I believe over; wordof it to be strictly truo.—l am, &c , J. S. Hoyds, La'e Clerk and Receiver of Land Heveaue f(r Southland

Invercargill,June9,