THE MACKENZIE DUNMMYISM CHARGES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1906, 21 August 1890, Page 13

THE MACKENZIE DUNMMYISM CHARGES.

As a large number of our readers take con- 1 siderable interest in the recent inquiry into the charges of dummyism brought in the House by Mr Thos. Duncan against Mr Thos. Mackenzie we subjoin the full text of the speeches made by Messrs Rhodes, Duncan, and Scobie Mackenzie •on the motion that the committee's report lie on the table. It will be remembered that report ■entirely exonerated Mr Mackenzie on both ■chargf a — dummyism and gridironing :— Mr Rhodes said : As a member of the Waste Lands Committee, I should like to say a few words, because the oharge of dummyism ifi a very serious one, and consequently is most seriously thought of by a very large seclioii of the community. I have no doubt that tbeso -charges which the committee had to iuvestigate were made by the honourable member for Wai. taki under a mistake, but they have been widely circulated through the colony, and it is only fair that a public denial should be given to them. I think that an honourable member s-hould be more careful in making sucb charges in this House, and especially in making them against another honourable member. As the honourable member for Waitaki has said that he was misled in making the remarks he did, I think the honourabla member, when he found out I>hat there was really no dummyism ought at ■onoo to have come forward and given that information to the House and, as narly as possible, made an apology to the House. It is very unfair that such charges as these should be hanging over the head of the honourable member for Olutha for the long period that they have now been pending. Eveu wheu the •committee met, the honourable uv. mber for Waitaki tried to get the honourable member for 'Clutha to disprove the ;iecunatiouß, although he himself was perfectly prepared to withdraw the accusation of dunirnyiMii. The facts of the case, as I understand tht-m, and as they came before the committee, were ■.omehiug of this •sort. The honourable member for Clutha, in 1885 went through th« Tautuku Bush district, and he and his party were th« v first to explore •that district; and in tho sub-equenb year also he went through thfi busiv. Ou each occasion he gave the department all the in formation be .could on the subject. Then, in 1888, 1 think, he asked the department to have the land opened if or settlement. The department accordingly ;sent an officer there, who made a report, and the land was valued as is usual. Then in June 1889, the land was declared open for settlement under the ordinary conditions under the Land Act. The land was gazetted for three months after June, but no application was put in, nor was there any for six weeks after the time for which the land was really open for settlement. Then the honourable member for Clstha put in four applications for sections contiguous to each other, but the Land department altered these applications. The original applications made allowance for land to be cut out for roads, but the Land department cut out reservations for the purpose of roads, and left the sections not contiguous, so that the honourable member for Olutha had to put in a fifth application in order to join his sections. And in the end the five applications were granted in two blocks, but really ad joiniug. Well, as the applications were all in his, own name, and the land was second-class laud, he only applied for 1000 acres. He could have applied for 2000 acres in bis own name. There was no question therefore of any dummyism; but, at the request of the honourable member for Olutha, we took evidence as to whether there had been any gridironing, or whether the other charges made in the speech of the honourable member for Waitaki were true, that is to say, charges of hanky-panky trickery and of generrally using his position as a Bupport,ea of the Government to obtain an unfair advautage in taking up land. The committee came to the conclusion that these charges were unfair. 1 ehonld like to read a passage from the houourable member for Waitaki's speech Mr Speaker : The honourable member cannot read anything of the kind. Mr Rhodes : Well, at any rate, the charge wss that he practically used his position as a supporter of the Government to get land without competition, I think. These were the general charges. The other charge before the committee was that in taking up the land in a number of sections he increased greatly the survey fees. I think that, praoMcally, this was tho only other charge that was made. We went very carefully into the matter, and, amongst other things, the question of gridironiDg was gone into. It is rather hard to define what that really means. There is no evidence that there was any real gridironing, which I take to be the securing of alternate sections of land in order to obtain the frontages of the country. What, however, the honourable member for Waitaki spoke of I would not call gridiioning; but, even if his definition was a correot one, there was no question that any sort of gridironing had taken place in this case. As a matter of fact, since these applications were granted the land along the north line of these sections had been taken up, so that other people have as much of the frontage of the country as Mr Mackenzie has. One adjoining section has been reserved, and a seotion on another side nas since boen taken up by another applioant. There is no question, therefore, of the honourable member securing the frontages of the country by his applications. As to the question of his having increased greatly the cost of the survey fees, I believe thnt the evidence given by the Minister of Lauds was to tho effect that the only survey that was made was of the outside boundary of the Work, and those were the only bush lines that were cut out. The subdivisions were not surveyed on the ground. That was done in the office, without octting the lines on the ground. So that there was practically no question of the honour ible mernhor having increased greatly the cost of the survej feep. As a matter of fact it also came out that it was usual to take up the land in comparatively small sections. That is the usual practice in the district of Otago and in other districts, and these applications were for 200-acre section*, and even these were really divided into smaller sections by the department. One section was cut into three. I believe that one reason why they were taken up in the shape they were was that the department refused to lay off sections straight back from the roads. They required in Ota^o, at that time, to have the lines running north and south, so that Mr Maokenzie was unable to take his sections as he wished to have them— namely, at right angles to the road. The department would not receive the applications in any other form than in that whioh I have indicated. But now, I believe, instructions have been issued to run the sections back from the • road instead of as they had been previously surveyed. I may say that in everything that came before the committee the honourable member for Clutha was shown to be absolutely free from anything in the nature of an imputation that he had been doing anything wrong, or tbat he had taken any unfair advantage of his position in any possible way. The sections were granted in the usual way in which such sections are granted by the land board, and I make this explanation in. rely because I think it is just as well that tlm statement should be as widely circulated as were the original charges, which have never been

publicly denied by the honourable member for Waitaki. Mr Duncan : This report is just exactly what I expected. It appears to me the committee has not gone very carefully into these papers, 1 because I notice that the charges I made, and which, to my mind, I put as fairly as I could, have proved successful, with the exception of the dummyism, wbich I had no intention of making, excepting inadvertently at the first, and I explained to Mr Mackenzie shortly after I made tbem, and he was satisfied. The letters tbat pissed between Mr Mackenzie and the Minister of Lands with the view of getting a certain block opened up go to show that Mr Mackenzie was industrious enough in getting thrnngbjthis inaccessible country .and finding out wbere there wan good land. The honourable gentleman made application to the Minister to get it opened, and went to extreme measures to do it. He reiterated his application to get the land open ; charged the Minister of Lands with vexatious delay. Mr T. Maokenzie : You have the correspondence; it is brief; read ifc. Mr Duncnn : Then, at the committee, when he was asked about the time he put his application in, he told the committee it was about six weeks after the land was opened for application, before there were any applications put in, so that everybody had the same opportunity of having an application in as well as the honourable member for Clutha. Now, anyone looking over those papers will see at once that it was a very different thing altogether. The chairman has been courteous enough to place the papers at my disposal, but it is rather tedious to go into the whole thing and to read the pap ts trough. The posters announcing tho land opun for application upon the 6th of Angus'; ar« attached to these papers, and we find these applications are dated on the 3rd AugUbt. At least four out of the five are so dated. Mr T. Mackenzie: It was my intention to lodge my applications when the land was opened, but I did not do ho until the 21at September. They did not leave my hands until the 21st September. Mr Duncan : There is nothing to show when they were received at the office. Mr T. Mackenzie : Yes ; upon the form you are quoting from. The date when my application was received at the office is stated. I will show it you. Mr Duncan : Then we go to the position taken up by the committee and by the last speaker— that there was nothing in the shape of gridironing. If you look at the report you will see that Mr Straohan, surveyor, reports on this block that there are about eight miles of a flat, going up close to this river, of very fair and good land ; and he further reports that a strip of fair good land runs in this valley, but states that the land on both sides is inferior both as to timber and land; therefore what I coutend is that, through Mr Mackenzie's knowledge of the land, and through his being so useful to the Government for a considerable time, he impresses on them the necessity of getting this land open, as he is very anxious to buy this block he has discovered. As the crow flies it is 12 miles, or really 20 miles by road from any settlement. We have it in evidence that to go there you must go through 20 miles of rough country, and we have it in evidence before the committee, by Mr JBarron, that the land was worthle«B upon either aide of this Week taken up by Mr Mackenzie. Mr T. Mackenzie : He never saw it. He never left the track. Mr Duncan : Ido not know whether he did or not. He said at the committee that he did see it, and he told me before the committee met that he was over the land, and was on the land ; that is all I know about it, and when I asked him what was the actual value of this land he said that the land was worthless Jupon the hill side of Mr Mackenzie's purchase. The evidence goes to show that there is a block of land, and that a gentleman is asked to report upon it at the instance of the honourable member for Clutha. He cuts out a block of some 10,000 acres, and states ifc is worth 10s an acre ; and the Government, or the board, or whoever it is— I suppose they were all to blame — allow a gentleman to go and put in five or six applications, so that he can, by taking lesser blocks secure the frontages and all the best land, and get rid of all the bad country and take up all the good. That, as far as I can see, is the outcome of it; and I think it will be found to <be a vpry bad precedent for any Government to form — that they would allow a gentleman who has been following them through thick-and-thin in this House to " spotj" a piece of country, then, allowing him under the Land Act to cub his sections as small or as large as he likeß, he can take a slip of land and render the rest, as has been done in this case, useless, We might put an extreme case, for instance This is bad enough, but it is quite possible it might be worse. I do not blame the honourable member for Clutha, but I blame the system that allows him or any one elso to do it, because if he had taken his 2000 acrns under this act, as he would have done, and elected to apply for" it in 10-aore sections, he could have had a hundred applications, and taken this up in any form he liked, so ; as to render it as unfit for settlement as the | gridironing rendered the Canterbury Plains unfit for settlement. He could take up the frontages to the river and the outlets to the hill or back country. The whole system is bad, and the Government which will allow this system to be carried out are doing the utmost injury to the country. There is no mistake of that. We have here five applications for _ a single thousand acres of land, and, according to the depth allowed to be taken, he is allowed to leave out any land that is worth nothing, because this land has two values, according to the report of the surveyor, and this land has apparently been well selected, because it stretches up tbp ceutre of the vallpy and takes up the heart of the district. If this is allowed to go what is left behind will not be taken up, because nobody will go 10 or 20 miles without a road to take up land whioh has been stated by an officer of the Crown to be worth nothing The whele 5000 acres was put down at 10s an acre; but the board, or somebody else, apparently has put 5« more and made the upset price 15s. What I compjain of is this system, and how it is carried out in this instance. It is laying anyone qnito open to the imputation that it has been given to a favourite, and not generally available by anyone elso. How can we expect land to be settled in a reasonable way if the eyes are allowed to be taken out by this gridironing ? The system is a bad one, and I am sure the House or the country will nob agree to it. With regard to the plan which I showed the honourable gentleman as far as it went with regard to this land it was absolutely oorreot. The only thing the matter with it was that there were the other sections which two more applicants had got ; but, virtually, his sections on that plan shown by me were right, as came out from Mr Barron of the department later on before the committee. So that Ml I have said about it is quite true, as far as 1 know, with the exception of the word " dummyism." When I was criticising the Minister of Lands the honourable member for Clntha, in his zeal, interjected several times until he drew my attention to him, and, seeing he was making himself so busy, I thought he had some reason for doing so. At tbat time the plan was put

into my hand, and the moment I looked at it I knew what it meant. This thine has been in the papers before, and was not contradicted by Mr Mackenzie. Mr T. Mackenzie : It was contradicted. Mr Duncan: I did not see it; it may have been. I stated what I have said in a bona Jidt way through the plan submitted on the 10th July, and the honourable member for Clutha said the pl»n was quite wrong, and the papers showing the number of applications, acreage, and position. But, sir, there is a serious discrepancy hert>, b«cause I understand that the application is not exactly as made by the honourable gentleman ; but still, we have sufficient in these papers to bear out all T iave said in the matter, and it is owing to the looseness of the administration of the land laws. If this is going on as rapidly in the North Island as it is in the South Mr G. F. Richardson : Ten times more so. Mr Duncan: Well, I pity the Minister of Lands— he will have this to answer for, -because he, will have a lot of land thrown upon his hands that will be a long time unsettled, as it is virtually locked up. That will be the result of the system. It is a system that should never be tolerated. People ought to be compelled to take up the land according to the lay of the district and the roads that are laid out, or we shall have the gridironing system of Canterbury repeated, and repeated with a vengeanoe. I have many more notes, but I think it is not necessary to take up any more time on this occasion. Two things I wished to establish, one was that it is wrong to keep a system of this sort in force. It is shown conclusively that it is at work in the South Island, and the Minister of Lands has told us that it is going on in the North Island ten times faster than it is in the South. If that is so, I pity the Minister of Lands who comes after the honourable gentleman, because he will not be able to dispose of the land which is locked up in this way, because that is the effect of the system. I do not in any way blame the hon. member for Clutha, as he has kept within the law. I have been somewhat taken short to-day in having to make this statement without notice. I was not prepared to go fully into it this afternoon, and I have only said what I have in self-defence and without preparation, as I expected this report would not be laid npon the table until to-morrow. Mr M. J. S. Mackenzie : I rise for the purpose of expressing the very genuine regret I feel over the line of conduct pursued by the honourable member for Waitaki this afternoon. The honourable member made against my honourable friend the member for Clutha, at an early period of the session, some charges which are of almost as grave and serious a character as could be brought against a public man. The charges were inquired into by a careful and impartial committee, against whose finding no one in the House, on either side, can say one solitary word. Before that committee the honourable member who made the charges said, " I have made a mistake ; I withdraw what I said ; I accused the honourable gentleman of dummyism ; I really meant gridironing." The committee bring down a report whioh shows very clearly that the honourable member for Clutha was guilty neither of dummyism Bor gridironing. The honourable member for Waitaki then comes before the House, and, instead of saying what, I venture to think, any other honourable member except himself would have said — that he had made an error, suoh as might have seriously injured the character of the honourable member for Clutha,— instead of acknowledging that and frankly offering an apology, the honourable gentleman has substantially repeated nearly all the charges in a vague and attenuated way. The honourable gentleman, when be first made the charges— when he was actually altering them — was warned by the honourable member for Clutba tbat be was making a mistake, that he, the honourable member for Clutha, had aoted in every respect under the sanction of the law. And what answer did the honourable member for Waitaki give? Substantially this : "You may have acted under the law, but I do not know and do not care what the law is." In other words, when the honourable member made these attacks against the character of my honourable friend he made them in blind and wilful ignorance of what the law was. Had he, before making the charges, looked into the aot of 1887 in the most casual way he would have seen that the honourable member for Clutha had merely taken advantage of the ordinary provisions of the law open to any person in the' country who was not, as was the case of the honourable member for Clutha, already the owner of second-class land to the extent of 2000 aores. Here is tho provision—section 11 of "The Land Act 1887":— "No person shall be entitled to purchase for cash within any one land district more than 640 acres of first-class land and 2000 aores of secondclass land under this aot. And every person applying for land for cash shall, at the time he makes his application, make and lodge a statutory declaration." Then follows tho declaration which is to the effect that any man owning 2000 acres of second-class land cannot select any further. The honourable member for Clutha at the time was not the owner of an acre. This land was second olass land, and it was waste and unless until the honourable member for Clutha explored it and made its qualities known. It was, after a full report by a Government official, declared to be second-class land. It was declared open under the law, and the honourable member for Clutha, though he might have put in an application for 2000 acres, contented himself with applying for 1000 acres, and in every other possible respect fulfilled the requirements of the law. In the face of these facts the honourable member for Waitati makes the very serious accusation which he did make against the honourable member for Clutha ; and when he was told that the honourable member had acted within the law, he said in effect, " I do not know what the law is, and I do not care whether he was acting within it or not." Thftn he gops before the committee and, behind the back of this House, retracts every one of the accusations, but immediately afterwards comes to the House and substantially repeats them. I regret it if I am doing the honourable gentleman an injustice, and if I am I hope he will correct it. Mr Duncan : I will correct the honourable gentleman, if he wishes. When I went before the committee I said, as I had told the honourable member for Clutha before the meeting of the committee, tbat, as far as dummyism was concerned, that I had used the wrong word, and that that was not what was in my mind, but that it was " gridironing." I said that before the committee and afterwards in my speech in the House this evening as well. Mr M. J. S. Mackenzie : Well, if it was " gridironing " that the honourable gentleman meant, all I can say is that he has arrived at a period of life when he ought to be able to say what he means. But, apart from that, if the honourable gentleman said before the committee that it was not "dummyism" that he meant but " gridironing," how is it that this afternoon he comes down here and uses such words as these: "I say these papers" — which he held in his hand—" bear out what I haxe said in this matter." Why should the honourable gentleman blow hot and cold with charges against a man's character in that way ? Surely ifc was not proper conduct for the honourable

gentleman to make a statement — for, in addition to dummyism, he accused the honourable member for the Clutba of " tricks " and wbat he termed " bankj-panky "as well— and then withdraw it, and then, finally, comes down here and Bays, "l have the papers here, which prove everything I have said." Happily for us, sir, it does not follow that when a man becomes a politician therefore he necessarily lorps the instincts of a gontlemau ; and the instincts of a gentleman demand thnt, wbon a man finds he has made a serious mistake,— when he discovers he has clone a wrong to another, — the mistake and the wrong shall be immediately followed by apology and reparation. I have known the honourable member for Waitaki for many years, and during the whole of that ppriod I have highly respected him, and do so still, and I hope to see him maintain th« respect of all of us unimpaired by still saying what he should have said at an earlier period — that he has done a wrong to a member of the House, and that he acknowledges and tenders an apology to the honourable gentleman for it. Mr Duncan: I said on the committee t. 'at I did not mean dummyism. I hay« said that here before to the honourable member for Clutha, and he was perfeotly satisfied. Mr M. J. S. Mackenzie : I cannot understand the honourable gentleman. I have already pointed out that he had said before the House that the papers bear out the oharges he made, and that he sat down saying he had proved his case. I will not trouble the House further. I will only repeat I exceedingly regret that the honourable gentleman's idea of an apology is to get up and soy he did not mean dummyism. The honourable gentleman has made many statements about this matter, and has involved himself in a curious knot of complications and contradictions. There is only one way of untying tnat knot — namely, to get up and say, seeing that he has failed to prove the charges he has had resting on the head of the honourable member for Clutha for the last few weeks, that he withdraws the remarks he made and regrets having made them. Mr Allen : Where is the case for the charge of " gridironing " if the honourable gentleman himself never intended to gridiron, the application being altered by the Waste Lands Board ? Why did the Waste Lands Board alter the application? The honourable gentleman did not want it altered ; and in the original application there was nothing at all in the shape of " gridironiog," and the alteration was made not for the benefit but to the detriment of the honourable member for Clutha. On the eve of a general election, it is not fair to try to establish false charges against members of this House, which charges would have a detrimental effect when an honourable member goes before his constituents. Mr T. Mackenz ; e : Before the chairman replies, I should like to say this: that I have no feeling whatever against the honourable member for Waitaki in this matter. I am delighted that he has brought it forward, because his doing so has simply crystallised whafc was flying about in the air and was taken up by many journals during the last six months. I shall not refer to anything said this afternoon by the honourable member for Waifcaki. He has already' been more than replied to by those honourable members who have so generously defended me. 1 The whole charge was also fully and exhaustively investigated by an independent tribunal erected by the Parliament of this country, and that tribunal has entirely exonerated me. I can ask no more. The honourable gentleman has; been misled in the matter, and others besides that honourable gentleman have- also- been misled. His bringing these oharges has given me an opportunity, of having the matte):! thoroughly investigated and cleared up; so that I have really nothing against that honourable member, and I feel sure that he will upon reflection discover that grounds for the charges which he made do not in reality exist. The following was the reporb of the Waste Lands Committee :— " (1) That, in August 1889, unsurveyed land in Tautuku Bush was declared open for applioation as second-class land, at an upset price of 15s per acre. " (2) That in August and September the same year Mr Thomas Mackenzie applied for 1000 acres in five selections, all in his own name. "(3) That these five applications were, after some alterations by the Survey department, subsequently approved, and the land apportioned to Mr Thomas Mackeneiq, in two blocks almost contiguous to one another, at the upset price. "(4) That, on appearing before the Waste Lands Committee, Mr Thomas Duncan, M.H R , said, * I wish to withdraw any remark I made in the House as connecting Mr Thomas Mackenzie with duromyism.' " He (Mr Duncan) afterwards said, ♦ I meant gridironing. 1 , "(5) That Mr Duncan seems to have been misled by a map anonymously sent to him, and by statements in the public press. ""(6) That the charges of dummyism and gridironing made in the House on the 10th July last by Mr Duncan against Mr Thomas Mackenzie have been disproved."