JOSHUA JONES,J

141

I.—3a

'2(Mi August i addressed a note to the Chairman asking permission of the Committee to appear as a principal in the proceedings and submit my facts through counsel for your consideration, and naming a precedent in tiiis case iur my application. 1 requested an early reply, in order that 1 might be prepared by instructing counsel and by producing papers, A:c. 1 mentioned the matter informally to Sir James Carroll, who stated that probably i would be permitted to make a statement before the Committee, but that 1 would receive a reply to my note. The Chairman, however, has not seen tit to send me word or line. As this is the most important case of the kind that has ever occupied the attention of a colonial Legislature, 1 ask your early and earnest consideration." Mr. Dire (Acting-Chairman): 1 think it would save time, Mr. Jones, if you would put those letters in. II ducts: With your permission 1 should like to read this reply which 1 have received from the Chairman of the Committee, dated the I:2th September: "With reference to your letters dated the 26th August and 9th September, 1 have the honour to inform you that the Committee have decided that they cannot give you permission m> appear as a principal or by counsel in connection with the above-named paper (Parliamentary Paper G.-l, Mokau-Mohakatino Block)." If 1 may put in these letters it will save my reading the rest of them. Mr. JJive (Aciing-Vhairnian): Very well. [Letters put in.] II uncus: As the Committee has seen lit to restrict any statement i might make to the limit of the present inquiry, from the period when Hen-man Lewis commenced to negotiate for these lands, 1 shall endeavour to confine myself accordingly. It should be remembered, however, that for the purpose of rendering my observations intelligible it may be necessary to go outside that strict line, more particularly where pertinent statements have been made, unauthorized, untrue, or otherwise misleading. As to the intimation from tiie Committee that this was an inquiry as betwixt Mr. Massey and Sir James Carroll, and that 1 should again petition Parliament respecting my own interests, 1 must say that 1 accept the suggestion more in the form of insult than generosity, inasmuch as the Committee are well aware that two petitions —one presented on the advice of the Prime Minister —at successive sessions, have been considered and favourable recommendations made in both instances, but the Government pay no attention to either. Indeed, the suggestion is in common with all the proceedings of this case, where one member at least of the Cabinei has a pecuniary interest. 1 recognize that the Committee is master of its own procedure, but am not in accord with the decision that, being a general and not a special Committee, it has no means of inquiring into all the subjects pertinent to this Mokau land transaction, from whatever quarter they may spring. I said in a previous note that the A to L Committee of 1910 had no hesitation, in the interests of Dr. Findlay's firm, of even permitting procedure hostile to the petition then under consideration. The present Committee should understand as well as 1 do that a Cabinet that ignores the strong recommendations of two Committees would not stay at that, and the suggestion that it desires the pastime of flouting another petition can carry no oilier interpretation than that the facts are not required at this inquiry. They have thrown out two petitions, sir, and would not pay any attention to them after being recommended to do so. The contention of the Chairman that the Committee has no means of dealing with the matter mentioned in my letters cannot stand, for the reason that if the Committee had not the power —■ which 1 say is waste of language —it could easily have been obtained from the House. In order that there may be no misunderstanding as to. what was required by me of the Committee I will read the short correspondence on the subject. That is what I have in my notes, gentlemen, but those letters, of course. 1 have read. I ought perhaps at this stage to give this Committee the grounds for my approaching Parliament and appearing before the A to L Committee of last year, and now by permission before this one. The story is a long one, but I shall come to its immediate junction with the present proceedings. There had been many years of litigation in England. A. lawyer named Flower, in connection with another lawyer named Travels in Wellington, who placed the property in Flower's hands for me two years before I went to London, had endeavoured by improper means to deprive me of this property. Flower was held guilty by the High Court in London of malpractice as a solicitor in this matter, and one of the Lords of Appeal expressed regret that Travels was not in England to be also dealt with. Flower was made to pay a heavy penalty for his dishonesty. He was by the same judgment held in effect to be a trustee of the property for me. The litigation ended in an undertaking by me to give a mortgage over the property to him, my own trustee, at his request. This was on 27th July, 1904, and the mortgage was given pursuant to a consent order in July, 1906, with extension to some date in 1907. Flower died in September, 100-1, and his executors stood in his shoes. There was no new trustee appointed for my interests. The fiduciary relationship did not terminate with Flower's death, nor upon my giving the mortgage to the executors. While I was selling the property in 1906-7, ami during the currency of the mortgage and extension that was arranged, a damaging report upon the Mokau property that had been procured by Flower in 1903—4, and had prevented two advantageous sales at that time (of which I have complete evidence), became again circulated over London. I saw the document myself in the hands of a man named Seward in 1907. This again spoiled a profitable sale. I produce the agreement of sale in form of a prospectus, and in Hansard of 1910, pages 645— (j—7, appears evidence from my agents selling the property that not only had the value of the coal been slandered, but also the title had been assailed, as had been the" case in 1894-95 when I was selling. This is the fair treatment by these executors so much boasted of in Hansard by their agent, Mr. W. T. Jennings, Chairman of this Committee, with whom I will presently deal. Having thus prevented my dealing with the property, the executors put it up for sale under the mortgage by order of the Registrar at New Plymouth on the 10th August, 1907, and bought it in for the amount of the mortgage-money. As the English Judge, Mr. Justice Parker, remarked in giving his decision, " Jones's trustees merely passed it from