THE HON J. M'KENZIE AT PALMERSTON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7179, 2 June 1891, Page 4

THE HON J. M'KENZIE AT PALMERSTON.

-«> — [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] PALMERSTON SOUTH, June 1. The Town Hall to-night wa3 filled to overflowing to listen to the speech delivered by the Minister for Lands. There was not even standing room available. Mr J. C. Scott, the Mayor of Palmerston, occupied the chair. Mr M'Kenzie, who on rising was received with storms of applause. He waa therej that night to give _ them an account of liia stewardship as their representative, and to explain to thorn the political and administrative actionb of the Ministry of which he had the honour to be a member. He also sought that opportunity of referring to charges wbich had been made against the Government of the day as a whole and against himself personally. THE DOUBLE SESSION. He would ask them to consider for one moment who was really responsible for calling the House together in January last. The previous Government knew perfectly well that it was in a minority. Why did it not resign immediately on the result of the election being made known and the feelings of the country ? The reason they all knew waa that that Government; wanted to put a number of its old political friends into the Upper House, and to accomplish that it had been necessary for it to make believe that it was still in a majority. He (Mr M'Kenzie) now, after four months' reces3, ventured to say that the country would be satisfied that the Government had taken the right course, as it had enabled Ministers to get a grasp of the whole of the affairs of the Colony, and they were now in a position to meet the House with proposals which would, he felt sure, meet with the support of the House and the country. THE WORK OF THE GOVERNMENT. The Government had, during the four months it had been in office, reduced the public expenditure of the Colony by between £50,000 and (Applause.) And the public service, he ventured to say, was being carried on at tho present moment just as well as it was on the day Ministers took office. They were told |chat immediately on the House meeting the Ministry would be attacked on its retrenchment policy. Well, it was prepared to meet any attack in that direction, and if it was defeated, the electors of Waitaki, and othtr electors throughout the Colony, would have a voice in the matter before it was finally settled. He and his colleagues believed they were right. They believed the Colony was with them, and they were prepared to stand or fall by their actions, and by what the people of the Colony would decide at the ballot-box. THE POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT. Ministers had come to the conclusion that the time had arrived when in the best interests of the people of the Colony they should be asked to cease borrowing, to live within their means,l and to rely on their own resources. In fact, the Government had come to the conclusion that the time had nearly arrived when, instead of borrowing, the country should begin so think about reducing its indebtedness, and he hoped the time was not far distant when it would be able to submit proposals ' which would enable it to do so. POSTAL RATES. The Government had decided, as he had no doubt his hearers were already aware, to submit a proposal to Parliament to reduce the postal rateß throughout the Colony to one-half what they were at present. TAXATION. It was also proposed to submit to Parliament during the coming session a scheme for the alteration of the incidence of taxation, so a3 to equalise the burden of taxation by reducing that borne by the h'on& fide settler, the industrial clases, the masses of the people. OTHER PROPOSALS. Time would not allow him to go into all the measures the Government intended to propose to Parliament when it meets, but there would be introduced a number of measures which were considered to be in the interests of the Colony. One of them would be a reform of the Upper House, j limiting the time in which members of that body could retain their seats. The Government would also introduce a Bill dealing with the electoral laws of the Colony. It was also proposed to submit to Parliament measures dealing with the question of labour and capital, Another measure of great importance which it was intended to submit to Parliament was the Land Bill. APPOINTMENT OF ME RITCHIE He could safely say that no more pure and honest appointment had ever been made to the Civil Service of New Zealand. Mr Ritchie waa appointed solely because he (Mr M'Kenzie) considered he would be the right man in the right place, and he was confident that after Mr ivitchie had been allowed a couple of yearn to show his capability, the appointment would not require any defence. HE SPEIICE's CHARGES. He now came to the statements made by Mr Spence at Invercargill. Well, the firtt churge was that he had ordered Mr Spenoe's removal from Southland to Weatland, so that Mr Duncan Campbell could bo appointed a Crown Lancta Ranger for that district ; secondly, that Mr Musnen waa removed to Canterbury so that Mr Campbell could take his place ; thirdly, that he (Mr M'Kenzie) had reduced the Land Office at InvercaTgill to less than an adequate working staff; fourthly, that he had sent a memo to the Land Office to make a declaration that it had perpetrated a swindle ; and fifthly, the appointment of Mr Campbell to the office ot Banger. Now he would give hard and dry facts, and show at the same time substantial reasons for his actions, and facts were " Chiels that winnading." (Lauprhterandapplause). First, then, he would take Mr Spence's own case, and the reasons which had induced him to yemovo that officer to Westland. On his tour of inspection throughout the Colony he got as far a3 Invercargill; but he might say before he left Wellington on that tour he had documents sent to him containing complaints of the manner in which the administration of the Crown lands and forest reserves in Southland was being conducted, and one of his objects in visiting Southland was to generally inquire into those matters. No sooner did ho reach Invercargill than numbers of people waited upon him for the purpose of drawing his attention to the defective administration of the Land Department, and the way in wbich the forest reserves were beiDg dealt with. One of those gentlemen who had interviewed him made such startling accusations against Mr Spence that he (Mr M'Kenzie) had decided not to hear them unless the accueer was prepared to sign his name to the charges he was making. This was agreed to, and Mr Gore, Mb secretary, took down the statement in shorthand, wrote it out that evening, and the gentleman in question called next day, read the statement over and signed his name to it. He (Mr M'Keazie) took that statement to Mr Spence himself and asked him to reply to it, which he did and sent it on to Wellington; but the reply was not satisfactory to him (the Minister), so he decided that tho gentleman who had made the statement should again be written to from Wellington, and asked if he had any further proof of the charges he had made against Mr Spence. Another letter was received from that gentleman emphasising what he had previously stated, and giving dates for some of the statements he had made, and at the same time giving the names of other people in Southland who could prove his accusations j but before this inquiry could be completed Mr Spence left the service. When at Gore recently, a copy of a petition which had been forwarded to his predecessor, the Hon G. P. Richardson, was presented to him. In it serious complaints were made with regard to the Croydon Bush and its administration under Mr Spence. At the same time a newspaper was banded to him. in which appeared the following advertisement : — "Notice — any person or persons found cutting or removing timber in side survey lines in Croydon Bush or Bryden and Beardon'a

sawmill reserve, will be prosecated by law. [Signed) Dryden and Beardon." This : advertisement waß quite illegal, and had no right to appear in the papers, and this had loeen done under Mr Spence's very nose in the Southland district. Had he been performing his duty properly aa Commissioner o£ Crown Lands he would at once have contradicted such an advertisement. The whole result of his neglect had been that the settlers in Southland, not only in the Croydon Bush district but also in other districts, had been prevented from gfcttiDg what they had a right to get, by the sawmillers being allowed to assume j by public advertisement that they had a ; legal right to what the law did not allow them. The settlers were practically thrust | to one side. On asking Mr Spence why ; he had allowed such an advertisement to j appear, he was told, in so many words, that he (Mr Spence) was not bound to read newspapers. A great number of other complaints had been made to him, too numerous for him to mention that evening, but he had documents in his possession which would bear out every word he was now saying. One gentleman in particular, he was informed when in Invercargill, could obtain anything he asked for at the hands of the Southland Land Board. He had requested Mr Spence himßelf to furnish a return of areas held by that gentleman for sawinilling purposes in Southland, and he found that this same gentleman was in possession of fourteen selections as sawmiiling areas, amounting in all to 2078 acres, with reservations besides, made for his own use and benefit, of 3790 acres, making a total held in the grasp of thia one man of 68G8 acres of Southland forest reserves, and he had only three saw mills on the lot. ("Oh!" and applause.) Another statement made to him when in Southland was that land with timber upon it, to the value of per acre, had been sold for the sum of 12s 6d per acre for cash. Into this he had made personal inquiry and found it to ;be true. Taking all these things into consideration, he could only come to one conclusion, and that was that it would be in the interests of the Colony of JSTew Zealand and to Mr Spence himself that he should be removed from that place where he had boen for such a length of time. The reason for Mr Museen's removal to Canterbury was that after consultation with Mr Spence himself, in Southland, he came to the conclusion that it was necessary to have a forest ranger in Southland. Mr Mussen was an elderly man of about sixty years of age, and unable to make long journeys on horseback. He, therefore, as an act of kindness to Mr Mussen asked him to remove to Canterbury, where he could do most of his travelling by train. (Applause). The third accusation made against him was that he had reduced the land office at Invercargill to less than an adequate staff to perform the duties required of it. He | found that the total land revenue received for the month amounted to £1251 10s 2d, being at the rate of £52 3a 6d per day. The entries in the books amounted to five hundred and one, being a little over twenty entries per day ; there were about fourteen receipts given per day, and barely four letters received and slightly over four letters despatched a day. Thirty -nine persons applied for land, being at the rate of about an applicant and a half per diem. In addition to this thore were a few printed returns to fill in for the month, and there was a monthly meeting of the Land Board, the minutes of which would have to be kept. And to do this work required a staff of officers at an expenditure of £2223 per annum! — (laughter) — being at the rate of .£lB5 5s per month, or a percentage of 15 per cent on the gross takings. In order that he might not do any injustice in this matter or show it in any false colours, he might say that the month of February did not quite come up to the average amount received for the year, as the total revenue received in Southland for the last year was £19,393 17s lOd. Now, the next crime he had been accused of was of having issued a circular, asking the officers in the various land districts to declare that they had perjured themselves. He would proceed to read the contents of that circular, and leave it to those present to judge. It was dated March 13, 1891, and was as follows : — " From the General Crown Landa Office, Wellington, to Commissioners of Crown Lands. — Under instructions from the Eon the Minister for Lands, I have to ask you to ask each clerk in your office if he ever got declarations under the Land Act, signed by a J.P., in blank, which were afterwards filled in and uaed for the purposes of application under the Act, the answer of each clerk to be noted opposite his name. Will you at the same time be good enough to state whether you have any personal knowledge of such practice having been pursued in your district.— (Signed) H. J. H. Eliott, Under Secretary." Now the reason for issuing that circular was that it had been reported to him that practices of this sort were carried on, and that there were good grounds for such a report. Two of the officers had stated in their replies that they had seen such applications. The fach that it was found to exist in one cage proved the necessity for the circular being written. (Loud applause.) In connection with the appointment of Mr Campbell, that officer was neither a friend nor a relative of his, and he only knew him from the fact that on a previous occasion he was acting in the capacity of Crown Lands Ranker in Southlaud, and that it had been reported to him that he was an excellent officer and attended to his work. He had also been told that the reason why Mr Campbell's services were dispensed with was that he had performed his duty too faithfully, and that the Conservative doves of Southland did not approve of his action in forcing them to stick so rigidly to their work. He asked Mr Campbell whether, in the event of hi 3 being appointed Crown Lands Kanger for Southland, he would also undertake the Forest Reserves duties. Mr Campbell replied that he would be quite able to undertake both offices by giving up his whole time and attention to the work. He (the Minister) then asked Mr Campbell if he could produce any certificates from the Commissioner of Crown Lands, under whom he had served. He replied that he had several which he would forward to Wellington. He (Mr M'Kenzie) had aeen these certificates, and before the appointment was made they were submitted to Mr Percy Smith, the Surveyor-General of the Colouy. Now this was what Mr Spence said with regard to Mr Duncan Campbell, " The bearer, Mr Duncan Campbell, has beun Crown Lands Eanger oi! Southland for a number of years, and leaves the service owing to the necessity of retrenchment on the part of the Government. I have found Mr Campbell to be a willing, capable and obliging officer, and I trust that he will succeed in getting a situation that will suit him. I will alwajs be \rlad to hear of his success. — (Signed) J. SrENCE , Commissioner of Crown Lands." (Loud and prolonged applause.) CONCLUSION. He had been accused by the Otayo Daily Times of putting hia own re- i lations and personal friends into the Civil Service, lie had not a single relation at the present moment in the Civil Service. If there was one thing he could pride himself upon, it was that his Land 3 were clean in that direction, and they— his friends and supporters — knew it. When he first commenced his political career in that district, settlement did not extend beyond two miles from Palmeraton. It now extended thirty-live miles, and, with- • out fear of appearing egotistical, he might ! say that he had done his share in opening i up that district. (Cheers.) The Olago j Daily Times had always opposed him, but j his constituents knew whether he had been ' a friend of the settler, or an enemy. He j had never wavered in his resolution to open ! up the land for settlement, and very otten j his endeavours were to his own personal j disadvantage. So long as the Otago Daily < Times was owned by the present . proprietors, so long would it oppose him in the performance of his duty. If, on any future occasion that journal took to praising him it would be time for settlers to look minutely into his actions. They had now beard all he had to say that evening, and while thanking thoae present for the patient hearing they had accorded him, he would leave himself entirely in their hands. '

Mr M'Kenzie resumed his seat amid loud and continued applause. After one or two questions of minor importance had been answered, Mr William Marcott moved the following resolution : — " That this meeting has every confidence in the Hon John ! M'Kenzie as our representative, and ( < in the Government of which he is a J member, and that the actions of the present Government, since it came into office, are fully approved of by the Waitaki constituency, and merit the confidence of the country at large." The motion was seconded by Mr M. Morton, and carried by acclamation, with three cheers. Three groans were then called for, and heartily given, for the Olago Daily Times. A vote of thanks to the Chairman terminated the meeting.