MOKAU LAND TRANSACTIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3006, 25 October 1911, Page 66

MOKAU LAND TRANSACTIONS.

NATIVE AFFAIRS COMMITTEE'S REPORT. WELLINGTON, October 19. The report on the inquiry regarding the transactions of the Government in connection with the Mokau and Mohatatino blocks was presented by the chairman of the Native Affairs Committee this afternoon.

The committee prefaced its report with a summary of the statement made in the House some weeks ago by the Hon. Sir J. Carroll, then Acting Prime Minister, and the statement made by Mr Massey at the opening of the inquiry. The committee found that the statement of Sir Jas. Carroll correctly sets out the facts relating to the Government's association with the transaction. Mr Massey's statement correctly sets out the facts referred to by him, and is in agreement with the statement of the Government, except as to three minor matters. (1) He suggested that the limitation provisions .of the Native Lands Act were avoided by the issue of an Order-in-Council, wnereas in fact the Order-in-Council was issued in accordance with such, limitation provision. , (2) T'ae statement to the* effect that the meeting of Native owners was not properly representative was disproved. (3) The statement to the effect that the company or members of the company will possess a practical monopoly of the coalbearing areas on the west coast of the Taranaki provincial district is disproved. "The only additional facts to which the committee deems it necessary to refer," the report continues, "are that the lessee finally acquired the interest of the Natives in the blocks for the sum of £2500 in cash, and the sum of £2500 in fully paid-up shares in a company having the capital of £IOO,OOO, formed to acquire the Mokau and Mohakatino blocks and other properties. Mr Hermann Lewis, the lessee, sold all his interests in the Mokau and Mohakatino blocks, excepting an area of about 7000 acres, which are subject to certain subleases, to Mason and Chambers for the sum of £7IOO in cash and £4OOO in fully paid-up shares in the company to purchase from Mason and Chambers, paying in cash and shares in its capital the sum of £BSOO. The sum paid to the Natives for their interest in the land was greater than the actual value of interests of the Natives burdened with leases, assuming the purchase money obtained by the lessee to be the true value of the block. Suggestions were made before the committee reflecting upon certain departmental officers concerned in this transaction, but the committee is satisfied that these suggestions are entirely disproved.