The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1911. THE MOKAU ENQUIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 109, 28 October 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1911. THE MOKAU ENQUIRY.

The charges of corruption, etc., levelled .against the Government in connection with the Mokau. transaction have completely fizzled out. The report of the Native Lands Committee, to which the whole affair was referred for ; investigation, establishes that Mr. Massey, though quite right in his facts as relating to the business transactions of the syndicate, was quite wrong in his statements relating to the Government's connection in the matter. It is proved that the Government's hands are perfectly clean over the transactions. Had the charges of corruption, or innuendoes to the same effect, been established, the Government would have had something serious to answer to the country for, but the charges, like the Iline charges, missed fire so far as the Government target was concerned. The light they shed on the transactions, however, should serve a useful purpose, just as did the Hine charges. The report shows that the original speculator, Mr. Hermann Lewis, gave the Maoris £25,000 and £2500 in fully paid-up shares in a company having a capital of £120,000, formed to acquire the Mokau and Mohakatino blocks, and other properties. Mr. Hermann Lewis sold out to Mr. Mason Chambers for £71,000, and £IOOO worth of paidup shares, thus making £47,500 profit. Mr. Mason Chambers sokl to the company, of which Mr. McNiib is chairman, for £85,000 in cash and shares, being a further advance of £30.00 Q. It will be admilted that this trafficking is undesirable, from the point of view of the interests of the country, but once the Order-in-Council was issued in the first place to enable Hermann Lewis to acquire the properties and proper safeguards taken that the land was to be thrown open for settlement on conditions consonant with those under our land laws, as was the ease, the Government, whilst, the land laws are as they are, cannot be held responsible for the subsequent profits made, no more than tliey can be for the profits made by so many successful applicants for Government land. The Government's idea, it is elear, was to expedite the settling of a block that was bristling with difficulties, and because of 1 hem fell it inexpedient to purchase themselves, and probably bad the firm of Findlay and Daiziel fin which the Attorney-Gen-eral has an interest) not been associated as legal advisers with the purchasing parties, the sale would

I have been regarded on every side j as one making for the speedy set-! tlement of the block that has | given more trouble and caused more litigation than almost all the - other blocks in New Zealand put together. It was apparent throughout the proceedings that the persons being "got at" by the Opposition were not the speculators, but the Ministry, and particularly the Attorney-General. They, however, have come out unscathed, as they also did from the Hine enquiry. We are at one with those who hold that such profits as were made by the speculators in this ease should be made impossible, and that the genuine settler should not be burdened by the charges the land must consequently carry in such cases. Without doubt the land speculator, especially in big rural areas, is ■one of the biggest curses New' Zealand is afflicted with. Compared with him the "bookie" is quite harmless. He is at wor[c all over the North Island, mopping up everything he can lay hands on, from Maori leaseholds td timber freeholds. How to block ■his little game is another matter. When land, be it leasehold or freehold, is held for use and not for speculative purposes, the country will progress at a rate unprecedented, but there is a long way to go yet before this desideratum is attained. A satisfactory feature about the Mokau block is that after all these years it is being made Available for settlement as quickly as surveyors can make it. Had Mr. Massey's advice been followed, and the Government ac-) J quired it, the block may h,'ave been settled in twenty years' time, for of a certainty the Government "would have been assailed by the several interests involved, and by the time they were straightened out it may have proved a rather expensive bargain. As it is, the present syndicate may get their money back, and th'ey may n»t.

, SHUFFLING THE PORTFOLIOS. As far as'we are permitted to know by cable the one important change in the British Cabinet concerns that vivid young man, Mr. Winston Churchill, to whom prominence is the breath of life. The papers seem to be speculating most hopefully on the work he may do as Minister for the Navy, a suggestion being that Mr. McKenna, who goes to the Home Office, formerly commanded by Mr. Churchill, was not as great a success as he might have been. Mr. Churchill assumes control at a time when there is not only a strong feeling against, huge naval votes in tlie Old Country, but in Germany also, and this may give him a more pleasant tenure of his office than Mr. McKenna enjoyed, for the latter held the reins when it was deemed suicidal to reduce naval Estimates. Sir E. Strachey and Mr. Emmott during the shuffle no\y find themselves peers, members of a chamber which has been or is to be rendered harmless by the -Prime Minister, by whose will new peers are made. It is a little strange that the Prime Minister should desire his intimates to lose their identity as factors in the political fight. Mr. Runciman, formerly Minister of Education, becomes President of the Board of Agriculture, a gentle hint, maybe, that a change is necessary for the benefit of education, and that agriculture doesn't matter, anyhow. But apparently the change that is'considered the most vital is that applying to Mr. Winston Churchill, the "man who must be heard." The Germans, we are told, are much interested in the appointment. They expect to hear a great deal more from Mr. Churchill than from the calmer Mr. McKenna about the navv.