Rapier Against Waddy

Southland Times, Issue 13060, 7 November 1894, Page 3

Rapier Against Waddy

The parliamentary reporterof the Dunedin Star writes that the speech delivered by Mr Bell, the member for Wellington, in the House on the Pomahaka purchase report was undoubtedly a powerful one, and created quite an impression on the House. He spoke to the following effect The Minister has chosen to give to this inquiry the character of a judicial investigation into his own conduct. That being so, he takes every precaution to ensure a verdict. He does not appoint a special committee, but refers it t* one composed of six of his own most loyal supporters and four opposed to his Government. He employs a Crown law officer to defend him. He instructs that law officer to attack his opponent in his concluding address, and the gentleman so instructed and employed must have found his task distasteful indeed, unless he has forgotten all the traditions of his profession. Such adjectives as Dr Fitchett has applied to Mr Scobie Mackenzie’s conduct would be objectionable if they were not grotesquely ludicrous. But Dr Fitchett is not here to defend himself, and I will not attack him. The Minister then employs Dr Fitchett to draw up the report. This is proved, as Sir Robert Stout pointed out, by the wording of the sentences ; further, by the fact that it was printed for the use of the Committee, which can only be effected by Government order; further, by the tacit admission of the member for Waimea Sounds ; and again, by the speech of the member for Masterton,who contented himself by suggesting that Mr Hutchison’s speech was written by Mr Scobie Mackenzie, a very ungrateful reward to the member for Patea for the delightful half hour we spent listening to the perfect humor with which he pointed his unanswerable satire; and lastly, the Minister who has chosen to treat this as a personal attack himself moves the adoption of the report, in order that he, the incriminated person, may secure the reply. Then a strong effort is made to choke the debate, and so prevent the friends of Mr Mackenzie from speaking. So we shall tell the world how effectively a member of the majority can engineer a parliamentary investigation to its desired result. It was amusing to hear the members for Msteterton and Waimea Sounds protesting that the Committee was not prejudiced, and that its members were guided by the evidence. The divisions in the Committee proceeded on party lines. The division in the House will proceed on party lines. The Committee is the reflex of the House and of its parties. And so the stuff embodied in this report will now be entered in the Journals, and when another party comes into power it will be erased. And I will add this : that it will be erased because it is unjust to enter it now ; because Mr Scobie Mackenzie is a gentleman who stands as high in the esteem of the people of the colony as any statesman who has taken part in its politics ; because he has been an ornament to this House, and will again, and not long hence, be seated here ; because the House, when it commits an ungenerous act, as it is about now to do, under the lash of the party whip, is prone to regret and to repentance ; and finally, because the case which Mr Mackenzie undertook to prove has been established, because the circumstances of this transaction, which the Committee has glossed over in its report—pregnant with suspicion as they were before the inquiryare now patent to the world, and by unprejudiced minds I believe only one judgment can in the end, when truth prevails, be found. And with what well-chosen words words did the Minister introduce the motion —how graceful were his gestures, how elegant his diction, how judicial his utterance ; worthy of the man who designated his opponent at the hustings the biggest liar in New Zealand—a compliment, indeed,"among so many eminent competitors for the distinction. And how courteously he referred to Mr J. M. Ritchie as a man who should be undergoing imprisonment with hard labour (he forgot to point out that if that were the fact he himself was guilty of. compounding a felony in refraining from prosecuting, and should therefore himself be indicted). And how generous were his words concerning Mr James Smith—and how convincing his declaration that a witness before the Committee had been guilty of perjury. lam compelled to discount the force of his charges against Mr Ritchie and Mr Smith, concerning whose action I am" ignorant, by the circumstances of his attack on the witness, who it seems made a mistake about a date, and himself explained his mistake to the Committee next day. How did the Committee like hearing that gentleman accused of perjury ’—and will, they support the Minister in that accusation ? He is a member of the Committee. Two have spoken without protest, and they canot escape the imputation that they have tacitly endorsed so outrageous, ungenerous, and malicious an attack on the character of an upright and honorable man. All three men were'absent, and doubtless he felt when using his privilege of licensed speech that he must control himself, and refrain from words which might

tsccm offensive—he ia much to be congratulated on his choice of language. Passion might have made an ordinary man rude, even Jed such an one into exaggerated bombaflti'This is no ordinary man, and, to do him justice, he delivered himself of .some extraordinary choice expressions. Oddly enough, however, he seems to have missed the oni y point of importance. I would not say that he saw and avoided it—the point which is of interest to the colony and which will yet oe of interest to Parliament. That point is that Mr John Douglas has sailed clean to windward of the Minister and his officers—has foisted a property on the colony at an unfairly high price, and that the log which would have recorded, in interesting detail, the progress of the voyage has disappeared. The value assessed to Mr Douglas for land tax was L2 2s 6d ; 'the rent paid was bd per acre. The price paid to Mr Douglas for nis land by the Minister was L2 10s. Did .the Minister inquire about the land tax value . and if not why did he refrain 1 Is it the fact that land is generally assessed fqr land tax at 7s 6d per acre less than its selling yalueat 18 per cent less 1 Cheviot was valued for land tax at L 40.000 more than the selling value accepted by the owners. On the Minister’s assessment Cheviot was worth L 350.000. But Mr Douglas tried to get more than L2 2s 6d-protests he sacrificed his land at that price for the benefit of the struggling settlers. So he considered his land worth L 3 an acre, and paid tax on L)~ 2s 6d. But his color is found to be fast.and his political principles unimpeachable. VV ill hon. gentleman opposite kindly consider the matter, and inform me what they—nay, what the Hon. J. M'Kenzie—would have said had a Conservative Minister of Lands been beguiled by such means into such a purchase by such a man. The price charged to the settlers is L 3 7s 6d per acre for tussock land, now that the roads have been provided. 1 myself regret that the Minister did not find any time to defend himself or his department,but was impelled to spend his full halthour in inventing epithets, in setting up imaginary opponents and demolishing them with impotent threats of what he might do if he were offended. He and his department need defence, but I fear none can be, as none has yet been produced. I take his own statements in his speech, and see that on every point he is inaccurate :—(1) Mr John Ritchie has nothing to do with it. (2) The first he (Mr John M'Kenzie) heard of it was from Mr T. Mackenzie, who presented a petition. (3) The petition was from 400 people in the Clutha district, asking that this land should be purchased. (4) In the opinion of the settlers it was land that should bo purchased. Now,l will take the first point: "Mr Ritchie had nothing to do with it.” Mr Ritchie is Mr Douglas's nephew,and is Under-Sscretary for Agriculture. On the 17th August Mr Douglas got fourteen days’ notice from his bankers to pay up the JLB,OOO mortgage. On the 21st Mr Ritchie goes to Mr Barron, the Under-Secretary for Lands, and suggests that Mr Maitland, the Chief Commissioner, and Mr Adams should be wired to value the land for purchase by the Government. All correspondence between Mr Douglas and Mr Ritchie has been destroyed, but some traces have been discovered. Mr Douglas wrote Mr Ritchie urging him to get the Government to bite at once. A nice expression! SoMr Ritchie was Mr Douglas’s agent to get the Government to bite. Wright, Stevenson, and Co., Douglas’s agents, telegraphed to Mr Ritchie to know if the matter was likely to be settled. The petition was presented to the Minister on the 30th August. On that day the Minister said he first heard of it, and on that day Mr Ritchie telegraphed Douglas : ‘ Matter cannot be settled for a few days. Haye you arranged time bank ?’ But Mr Ritchie had nothing to do with the purchase. That will do for a committee of this House, but it wouldn’t do with a jury. We all know that the history is written in that burnt correspondence, Th sis accentuated by the facts that some correspondence between Ritchie and the Lands Department has disappeared from the file. Who removed them, and why ? We know of only one by mere accident—it is significant enough—a telegram form Ritchie to Barron urging that the purchase money should be paid at once. It remains unaccounted for, anil even an unsuspicious pc; sou like myself cannot, be persuaded that there arc not more behind. My half hour is almost ended, and 1 am c impelled to omit my intended examination of the evidence on other points. I will conclude by saying this ; Mr Suebic Mackenzie is an honourable man ; he speaks th; truth ; he ear s not to suggest. vViici he said i.li >.t he did not impti!e conuption h ■ sai l what he meant, and to tb-se who MnpMtm he his made charges by iunucli io I say ; those of you who k'.ow the in m say a h t you know to be untrue, and thus: ot y u wiio d> not know him will live to understand that you have unjustly impugned the courage and the honor of a man who did his duty.