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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 24

[commentary]

The Standard's comments on this singular espistle from their representative are strong, but I need not reproduce them : The letter speaks for itself.

In another paper, the Poverty Bay Herald, I found a letter from Mr Cooper, who is Mr Read's agent in land negotiations at Gisborne. He denies that Mr Wilson had purchased the lands scheduled in his report to the Native Minister—declares the schedule to be "entirely false"—and "thinks this is a matter that demands a thorough inquiry." He goes into details, which are taken up one by one, and refuted by the editor of the other paper, the Standard, in its issue of 4th October, especially as to the amount of advances made by Mr Wilson, which are grossly overstated in Mr Cooper's letter. Considering the relations between Mr Cooper and Mr Read, as subsequently disclosed in the evidence taken before the Commissioners, the following extract will be sufficient to give an idea of the whole :—"The people in Gisborne," says Mr Cooper, "are always complaining about having no public money expended in this district; but this is all false, for there has been some £20,000 to £30,000 of public money squandered by Mr Wilson amongst the Natives in this district, for which the Government will hardly see one acre of land with a good title. I think it is a great pity for this district that the Government will not allow Mr Wilson to spend any more public money. There is no one who will feel the loss of him so much as myself and the storekeepers and publicans." When Mr Cooper wrote this he must have been perfectly aware that Mr Wilson had only advanced £7,509 on 343,746 acres of land, which were all properly surveyed, and that of these advances £4,175 had been made on lands with Crown title. Also, that Mr Wilson had stated in his report, "I hold evidence from several respectable Europeans to show that, on his own statement, Mr Cooper, as principal and manager, did deliberately frame his arrangements upon an assumed and asserted partiality of the Court for Read." Mr Cooper's letter, like Captain Read's to the Chairman of the Highway Board, when perused by this light, speaks for itself, and, also, needs no further comment.

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More extraordinary, and more to be regretted, is the hasty action of Judge Rogan himself in the matter. I may here state that I heard no charge against the Judge of corruption in any way. He is popular, and not mixed up with any land purchases himself, but seems to have got completely under the influence of Captain Bead and his circle, and to have connected himself with them in, at the least, a most injudicious way. On the 20th September he, too, rushes into print in the columns of the Poverty Bay Herald—the organ of Bead's party. He says :—

"Having seen in the Standard of the 20th inst., a schedule headed 'Land purchases in the North Island,' in which are included a number of blocks of land in the Poverty Bay district, stated by the Hon. the Native Minister in the House of Representatives to have been purchased by Mr J. A. Wilson, I enclose a translation in Maori of the lands named in that list, and request that you will publish it in the Herald for the information of the Native owners of land in this district.

"For the information of those to whom it may be interesting, I desire to state that the quotations of land purchased, alluded to by the Native Minister, are nearly all false statements as far as Mr J. A. Wilson's purchases are concerned; because in the column headed ' Purchased' instalments on account of land have only been made, and one or two blocks of land only have been purchased.

"An inquiry into the nature and extent of these purchases will probably soon be made, when I propose to show, that a large amount of public money has been expended in advances to Henare Potae and others, for which no title can be proved. I will not particularise here, but will mention—
"Tauwharepare 74,000 acres.
"Huiarua 39,000 acres.
"Parariki 44,000 acres.

"Large sums of money have been paid to Natives on these and other large blocks of land, exclusive of survey charges, for which Mr Wilson will be alone answerable.—I am, &c., John Bogan."

The first thing that must strike everyone in this letter, is the extrajudicial statement, that "no title can be proved" on land which was to come before his Court at an early date for the express purpose of inquiring into the title. This conduct is without precedent. Again, Judge Rogan says "an inquiry into the nature and extent of these purchases will probably soon be made;" but wherever he got the information, it was incorrect. No such inquiry ever has been, or apparently ever will be, made voluntarily by the Government. It was what Mr Wilson so page 33 earnestly himself desired; but the Commission, when it did sit, would not go into the matter, and probably was not empowered by Government to do so. Again, the quibble as to the word "purchasers" was unworthy of one in Judge Rogan's position. He must have been aware that the word was always used in returns, and that its meaning, as so fully illustrated by the report, could not possibly have been misunderstood by the Native Minister, or anyone else. He must also have known that Mr Wilson could not do more than pay "instalments" until the land had passed through the Court, and that his chief complaint was of the great difficulties thrown in his way in the effort to pass them through. The last paragraph shows that Judge Rogan must have been very much out of temper when he penned it, but the main question occurring to most people will be : Why was the letter penned at all? In no other part of New Zealand than Poverty Bay, so long secluded from the world, could such a thing have occurred, as a Judge entering the arena, and forejudging matters yet to come before him for investigation.

The surroundings of the case are thus, you will see, sufficiently interesting in themselves, and they would be more interesting still, if the inquiry had branched off into the action taken by Ministers in connection with Mr Wilson's report. The Commissioners, however, being only Government departmental officers, this was impossible, and it is to be hoped a Committee of the Legislature will yet take it in hand.

It is also to be observed that Judge Rogan admits "that one or two blocks have been purchased" by Mr Wilson. Now, a block contains anything from 10,000 to 80,000 acres. The three blocks mentioned in the Judge's own letter contain 157,000 acres, yet Mr Cooper had just stated the Government could hardly see "one acre of land with a good title," on Mr Wilson's purchases. Judge Rogan's letter was made, however, to do a sacred duty. It was telegraphed to the Wellington papers, and appears under the heading "Napier," as follows:—

The special correspondent at Gisborne of the Napier Telegraph states, that a letter appears in the Poverty Bay Herald, this morning, from Judge Rogan, alleging that the statement made by the Native Minister in the House, relative to extensive purchases of land by J. A. Wilson, are nearly all untrue, as only three blocks (Judge Rogan, by-the-bye, only said one or two) have been completely purchased, and merely instalments have been paid on the remainder to Natives who, in most cases, can prove no title "to the land." Innocent Southern members, reading this telegram in Wellington in their papers, could have little thought that the J. A. Wilson referred to is one of the most honourable, one of the most widely known, one of the most page 34 experienced, and one of the most zealous of Native Officers, who has filled high positions, and who knows the Maori, his language, his manners, and his land tenures, as well as any man, be he whom he may, in the Colony. Yet I was assured on all sides, that this was Mr Wilson's position and character, that right through, from beginning to end, Judge Rogan was made the tool of astute, unscrupulous, and low but wealthy men, and that Ministers sacrificed Mr Wilson because he stood in the way of these men, and others of their political supporters, relations, and friends. My own conclusion was that Native land-jobbing may be well enough in its way; numbers of people have made, and are making, great wealth by it, but when Ministers or Ministers' friends are asserted to be mixed up with it, they would do well to court at once the fullest publicity, and the most thorough investigation by independent men. The Colony cannot afford a Piako Swamp scandal every session. Under any circumstances, the sooner that Native land purchasing ceases to be a branch of Government business at all, the better. A very high-minded despot, with a very strong sense of public duty, might succeed in it. Governments constituted like ours, and composed, as a rule, of men brought up from their earliest days in a desperate hard struggle to make money, never can.