LAND PURCHASES

Otago Witness, Issue 3149, 22 July 1914, Page 13

LAND PURCHASES

CHARGE BY ME HIfiDMABSH

AN EMPHATIC DENIAL

(From Our Own Correspondent.l WELLINGTON, July 16.

In the House of Representatives this afternoon Mr Hindmarsh accused the Government of being anxious to ruin all forms of State enterome, except those which could be turned to the profit of their ovyn friends. ■ For instance, they were ready enough to borrow millions of money wherewith to buy land at exaggerated values from their own supporters. ~ , , . ~ The Prime Minister said that he could not let this statement go uncontradicted. It was a fair sample of the charges that came from the other side of the House without a tittle of fact behind them. The hon. gentleman had said that the Government were in the habit of purchasing land from their own supporters at higher prices than the land was worth, and special reference had been made to the estate mirchased from Mr Lethbridge, in Hawke’s Bay. He would give an emphatic contradiction to this statement. The (government d,id not purchase land from any individual, for there was a Land Purchase Board set un bv Act of Parliament. There had been no change in the personnel of the Land Purchase Board since the present Government came into office. The Government had in that time made quite a number of purchases, but •with the exception of one block he had never seen one of the estates until the land was purchased. The Government took no Dart in the negotiations. The other point was that Mr Lethbridge’s property was practically purchased before the Government came into office, and the only part the Government had'taken in the transaction was to pay Mr Lethbridge for the property purchased by the previous Government. The hpn. member had made a gross misstatement of fact, and the proper thing for him to do was to stand up and apologise. Mr Hindmarsh said that fhortly after the Government came into office he had seen Mr Massey, and said that ho hoped the Government would not take oyer the Sherendon estate without making inquiries about it, because the land was not suitable for close settlement. Mr Massey had then replied that the matter was not fixed up, and that he would make inquiries. Mr Massey said that he was quite prepared to lay all the papers relating to the purchase vbefore Parliament. These would show that in regard to the purchase of Sheronden there was nothing left for the Government to do when it came into office but to confirm it and find the money, and instead of the Sherenden settlement being a failure it had been a thorough success. Every section had been taken up, and, so far as he had been able do learn, the settlers were well satisfied. “It is,” Mr Massey said, “one of the most contemptible charges of the manv contemptible charges that have been made against this Government by members on the other side of the House.”

Mr Hindmarsh said that all the people from whom land had been purchased were sunnorters of the Government. Mr Massey: I give that statement an emphato contradiction. I know several of the men from whom land has been purchased, and they are not all of them friends of the Government.