THE GRAZING RUNS EPISODE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2352, 19 November 1908, Page 6

THE GRAZING RUNS EPISODE.

A WULLIXOTON Ol'iNlOX

(The -■ ‘Dominion.’’)

The Minister for Lands has offered an explanation of the singular transactions an connection with ill© Gisborne grazing, runs which we •discuss--ed on Thursday of last week. It will be remembered that a Mr Black and a Mr Hall hold grazing runs on lease from the Government, and that their leases terminated this year. *A rmieival oi Ins lease was ret used „to nil Black, who thereby loses not only the new term in anticipation of which ne bought the lease, but some £SOOO in hard cash as well. Mr Hall is a pioimincut Gisborne citizen, who is wellknown as a staunch trioiul of the Government. He was wise enough to induce the Hon. J. Carroll to / lead his cause with the Lands Department. and as a result his lease was renewed. Mr M-Nab-now puts forward a lame excuse for this strange discrimination. He says that Mi Hall’s run was reported to him by the Land Board as being unsuitable for subdivision, and that he therefore agreed to the renewal. After the renewal had been granted, so the story runs, it was found that a clerical error had been made in the- Napier office: Mr Hall’s land should hare been described as suitable for subdivision. It is a very unfortunate circumstance that this error was made In the case of the -Government’s' friend,' and not in the ease of Mr Black. (Tire two runs, wo should observe, are about equal in area, and in all other respects.)

What the Minister wishes us to believe, therefore, is that lie would have treated Mr Hall as he treated 'Mr Black hid he been correctly’ informed of the position by the Lane 1 Board. But can it be supposed for a moment that the schedule in which the error occurred was the only information which the Minister had before him? There is the best of reasons for believing that the Minister had the detailed reports of the Crown Laud Hanger, to refer to, and no accidental slip of the pen could have occurred in these. The Minister stated -also.that lie had no recollection of any person communicating with him in the interests of Mr Hall. How, then, does he propose to explain the following letter, written many month*, before the date on which Mr M'Nal stated in the House that Mr ,11 all’s land was not suitable for subdivision, ■and only a fortnight- after the date (February IS) on which the Napier office sent the schedule to Wellington ?

(Here follows the letter read by Mr Carroll at His Majesty’s Theatre.) - How, with that appeal for help before him, can Mr M‘Nab say, as he

said to the Dunedin ‘aStir,” that he did not know -until a week after the session ended that Mr Hall’s run was threatened with subdivision? How could he, months afterwardsspeak in the House as if there had never been any suggestion that Mr Hall’s lease would be touched? At his meeting at Gisborne the other day, Mr Carroll was asked to read the letter which Mr Hall wrote him in reference to the lease, but Mr Carroll declined to do so. When, in conjunction with this reticence, Mr if'Nab's own -unsatisfactory statements, and the singular refusal of the Land Board to'exhibit' all the correspondence relating to the matter, we remember the Minister’s over-rid-ing of the Laud Board when it recommended the. renewal of the lease to Mr Black, it will be pretty generally agreed that the matter requires further ventilation.