The Waipawa Mail Published Tuesdays Thursdays, & Saturdays. Thursday, October 21, 1897. THE PROGRESS OF HOROWHENUA.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXI, Issue 3666, 21 October 1897, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail Published Tuesdays Thursdays, & Saturdays. Thursday, October 21, 1897. THE PROGRESS OF HOROWHENUA.

The last stage of Horowhenua is the worst by far, so far as the Minister of Lands is concerned. Last week the Chief Justice pointed out in the clearest terms that Government should ask Parliament for a vote to pay the costs awarded to Sir Walter Buller and Major Kemp, and failing that for the Public Trustee to be examined. Government with an obstinacy which might have some virtue in it if exercised in a good cause, made no move, and on Saturday Mr J- C. Martin appeared to give his evidence. It was a strange spectacle. A high official, the administrator of the moneys of people who entrusted their estates to a State department because of the absolute confidence that is reposed in it, brought up like any defaulting creditor under a judgment summons to explain why he did not pay the just debts he owed as the statutory plaintiff in a case where he was made a whipping boy for the Minister of Lands. He told his story candidly and produced the correspondence which had passed between himself and the Minister who objects so strenuously to appear before a Judge. Mr Martin had tried every means in his power to obtain .authority from the Minister to pay the debts incurred, but could get no reply—a sullen silence was maintained throughout. The case will come up later on this week and the Judge will be asked to grant an order to seize the property of the Trust fuuds and, failing that, to issue a writ against the Public Trustee’s private estate. Meantime the costs continue to pile up and interest is being charged on the verdict of the Court. What such senseless obstinacy means no one can explain. Some people profess to see a new policy outlined in it. Government has introduced a Bill to prevent the recovery of small debts. In their own case Ministers are setting a judgment of the highest court in the land at defiance; presently they will repudiate all debts. That appears a logical explanation, but it is rather a roundabout and hardly a creditable way of announcing the fact—it should have been stated in the Budget. But even this does not end the litigation or even the legislation connected with Horowhenua. The Hon. Minister for Bushy Park has another Bill ready to launch, a regular torpedo of a Bill it is said. All sorts of rumours are afloat as to the scope of it. It is so revolutionary that the rest of the Cabinet are aghast at the idea of it being circulated, but Mr McKenzie is determined to have his way or burst up the show. From a reliable source we hear that it proposes to put the Horowhenua block back into the position it was pre-

vious to 1871, when the rival tribes had sharpened their tomahawks and laid in a stock of gunpowder to settle the ownership. Sir Donald McLean intervened with his conciliatory policy and made peace. Since then civilisation has moved on apace and the Manawatu railway line cuts through a country dotted with thriving townships and the Levin State Farm. Mr McKenzie’s progressive measure is intended to destroy all titles save the one his excellent Government holds over the State establishment, which happens to be the only one which was acquired illegally. Moreover, the Bill contains a clause which provides that no legal tribunal of any sort shall have jurisdiction in Horowhenua but that the Minister himself shall be judge, jury ,bailiff, and policeman, all rolled into one. The Right Hon. Doctor Seddon is trying his best to put the brake on his colleague, but ineffectually so far. In fact the Clydesdale horse in the Ministerial team has taken the bit in his teeth and bolted. It is a case of blind staggers.