THE MINISTER FOR LANDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7297, 17 October 1891, Page 4

THE MINISTER FOR LANDS.

BANQUET AT PALMEESTON. (.Pas Pbbßß Association.] PALMEESTON, Oct. 16. A complimentary banquet given to the Hon J. M'Kenzie by his constituents tonight was largely attended, every available seat in the local hall being occupied. The chair was taken by Mr James Scott, the Mayor, who was supported on his right by the Premier (the Hon J. Ballance), and on hiß left by the gueßt of the evening. Sir Robert Stout and the Hon J. G. Ward also occupied Beats of honour. The members of Parliament present included the Hon S. E. Shrimeki, M.L.C., and Messrs Pinkerton, Hutchison, Earnshaw, Duncan, Hall-Jones, Mackintosh, Carncross and Pratt, while the local supporters of the Minister were reinforced by a strong contingent from Dunedin, Oamaru and other centres.

The toaßt of the guest of the evening was proposed by Mr W. H. Williams, of Shag Point, who claimed to have known the Hon J. M'Kenzie for thirty years. The Hon J. M'Kenzie, who was received with loud and continued applause, said that he believed he had got the most arduous "duty to perform that night that he had ever performed in his life, and he did not know how he could properly thank them for the very great kindness they had done him, and for the manner in which they had honoured him that night. He gathered from their being there that night that they were pleased that he occupied the place he did in the Ministry of the Colony. (Applause.) Their preaence was sufficient answer to all the criticism that had been referred to by previous speakers. He could safely say that he had got a fair share of criticism, but they .would agree with him that it did not affect him much personally. (Laughter and applause.) It had been said that he wanted to do away with freehold in land. Now, the Bill tUat he brought before Parliament had the full sanotion of his colleagues, and it provided that anyone wishing to purchase land for cash could do so ; he could either purchase it on deferred payment if he had no cash to buy it with, or he could take it up on perpetual lease. The Bill, however, provided that there should be no more large estates with very few improvements made upon them, and it was intended that there should be no more speculation in land. He asked what possible hardship this could do to anyone who wished to beoome a bonafide settler, and who wished to improve his land. The very clause of the Bill about which so much noiße was made was similar to a clause in the Land Act in force when he first took up land in the Colony. Then no one could get a Crown grant for land which he had taken up from the Crown until a certain number of improvements had been made. Settlers got on well under that system of land tenure until the sons of Belial arrived in New Zealand. (Laughter and applause). These gentlemen, as soon as they arrived, made the laws to suit themselves, and they enacted that it wae not necessary to make improvements on the land, and that was the first of the creation of big estates in Otago. He noticed that the Tory Press of the Colony wanted to make out that the Premier and himself had a difference of opinion bb to accepting the amendments made by the Legislative Council in his Land Bill, but not a word of it was true. If he had accepted the amendments he would simply have got a consolidating measure, and the Liberal provisions would have been torn from the Bill. All who knew him knew that he would not be a party to anything of that sort. (Applause.) The Legislative Council got its instructions from the Tory press of the Colony to reject the M'Kenzie Land Bill —(laughter and applause) — and he had seen in scores of papers, six or eight weeks before the Bill came before the Upper House, that the Council would never pass it. No man of honour oould any longer hold his seat as Minister for Lands if he was to be dictated to in this manner. And by whom P Who were the leading spirits in the Legislative Council in dealing with his Bill? They were the Manager of a Mortgage Company, the head of a financial firm in Christchurch, and one of tho biggest landowners in the Colony. (Applause.) Those were the three men who were driving his Bill to destruction. (Laughter.) Wae he to aocept the dictation of these men ? If he had done so he would be worthy of the scorn of the people he represented. (Hear, hear.) There had been a lot of criticism about the proposal in his Bill that one man should have one run, but he had gone very carefully into the matter, and he found that so long as the preßent law continued in existence , and large Companies monopolised the pastoral runs in this Colony wo would lose very much by it. At the prej sent time there were 163 runs let in the Colony, and they were held by thirteen lessees. These runs contained 2,538,263 aores, and carried about one million sheep. : The annual rent waa about threepence per acre, or atotalrentof elevenpence per sheep. He was confident in his own mind that the country was worth more money than they got for it— (hear, hear)— and that if the land were occupied by small owners more revenue would be derived from it. He proceeded to give a number of other instances ol large blocks of land being held by companies which were only yielding a email rent, and pointed out that if these properties were in the hands of small owners it would be all the better for the Colony. He was convinced that his Bill would yet pass the Legislative Council, and that it would yet become the cornet-stone upon which the future land policy of this country would be built. (Laughter and npplauße.) After referring to what he had already achieved to settle people on the land and eulogising the Liberal Party for what it had done last Peasion, end for the manner in which it had conducted itself in the House, he concluded by Baying that it ». r ould be his earnest endeavour to always be worthy of the confidence that was reposed in him by his supporters at the present time, and he hoped that he would never <'o anything to disgrace hisconstituency. (L ud applause.)