LAND SCANDALS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17215, 18 January 1918, Page 3

LAND SCANDALS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

(Feom Our Own Corhespondent.)

SYDNEY, January 9.

It is a long time since tho report of any commission appointed by a Government has caused such a sensation as tho one submitted by Mr Noel Webb, S.M., upon tho question of land purchases made by tho Vnughan Labour Government, which was succeeded in office by tho present National Government.

Mr Wobb inquired into many things, but he finally, and very clearly and explicitly, put blame upon two men —Mr Styles, who was Chief Secretary in the Vaughan Government, and has been Minister of Education in the National Cabinet, and Mr Jones, tho Government Valuator. His condemnation of those two men is complete and scathing.

Tho South Australian Government (according to Mr Webb) was buying land in various directions, anil generally with groat caution. An area known us WiU'iams's Land was submitted, and, according to teh report, its purchase was hurried on by Mr Styles in an extraordinary way. Mr Webb says that collusion existed between Mr Styles and a Mr West, who, on the day that Cabinet, on Mr Styles's recommendation, decided to buy tho land, stepped in and bought tho property. Ho immediately sold it again to tho Government at a profit of £4000 . The commissioner therefore found that Mr Styles " betrayed tho business of the Government to Mr 'West, and that Mr West dealt with tho Government under this unfair advantage." Ho also found that the only reason Mr West had. for buying Mr Williams's property was to sell it again to the Government. Mr Styles expedited tho matter so as to bo able to inform Mr West that ho had recommended the purchase to the Government.

Tho Commissioner says that tho Government was recommended by its valuer, Mr Jones, to buy. for £292.000. land worth not moro than £158.000 The owner of tho land and Mr Jones were also personal friends. "I am unable," Mr Webb eays, "to ascribe Mr Jones's valuations to an error of judgment. Tho discrepancies are too vast to admit such an explanation. Tho whole valuation is so exaggerated as to admit only of the explanation that Mr Jonos wilfully departed from his duty as Government valuator and put untrno values on the land. The; irresistible conclusion which is to bn arrived at by tho mere fact that such valuations were made is that they were ma do dishonestly." Mr Styles, of course, resigned his portfolio, and demanded an inquiry by a Supremo Court jud.se. Ho has asserted, most vcnomouslv. that tho report is tho outcome of political bias on tho part of Mr We-bb. "Mr Webb," ho says, " probably remembers how ho paced my office on more than one occasion, beseeching that ,1 should secure for him an appointment under tho Vaughan Government. 'Do not send mo,' he said, 'to Port Pirie. but appoint rne Deputy President of tho Industrial Court and increase my salary, which is tho least I can expert at your hands.' "