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That Land Grab.
COMMENTS BY MR WILSON.
During his speech at the Liberal rally
last might at the Bedford Hall, Mr
Frank Wilson- made some refrence to
the taking up of land by the Ministerial
syndicate, vide Mjr Seaddan's remarks
in Melbourne on Tuesday.
Mr Wilson -said; jhe had been critic
ised 'for referring to the land-grab by
Mr Scaddan on the route of tiie trans
continental railway. On ifchis they
had it from 'Mr Scaddan himself that
he iwas associated in the selection of
some hundreds of thousands of acres
of pastoral lands, with fiVe Ministers
of.ijhe lOrown— Messrs Cottier, Walker;
Johnson, and Drew. With, this land,
might it be remenilBered, ibis own Gov
rnment kad when in power seen the
possibilities of - the development of the
country '^by t^;- transcontinental rail
way, ancl reserved a strip twenty -nve
miles each side of the .survey so that
a future Pariliament anight deal with
it to the benefit of the State. . (Hear,
hear.) Pastoral lands} foe would t©U
them., were divided into several classes
or .rentals, from £A Per thousand
acres in the south-west lo 3s per (thou
sand 'acres in the Euola division. The
low price in the latter quarter was
based -on the difficulties of access and
the character of the land as then
known. With the' certain .advent of
the -Une and the discovery of artesian
water the Eucla division lands had been,
made attractive, yet they found no
consideration of an .alteration of price,
no consideration of th'e possibilities of
general settlement nor development
nor reservation of country for the bene
fit of the community, but a r.u&h. to
take up lands .on the old price- Further,
fchere was apparently no question of
the utilisation of the land, of stocking
it ,and rainning the hundreds of thou
sands of acres as a run, for Mr Scad
dan (had stated 'ffiey expected to make
money out iof' the grab, -as, they 'had al
ready been offered a price which, show
ed them a profit. He asked them i/a
consider whether it would not have been
better for this- Ministerial syndicate
to lhave .acted at least a little different.
(Hear, hear.) Whether tiheir rush for
the lands, under the circumstances,
was a non-observance of their position
of trust to the State and tli6 commun
ity, and whether anyone could consider
it the really proper thing for Ministers
to do. (Hear, hear.) 3R Scaddan
had mentioned a syndicate of seven,
but had only mentioned five members.
Jt would be interesting to know wiho
were th-e other two and it iwa-s a
strange thing that a- name impressed
itself an one's mind in this connection,
and no surprise -would be caused if one
of the missing partners were found to
be. Brother Chinn. (Laughter and ap
plause.)
A wail from Albany. 'The port has
no conveniences,' complains a shipper,
'and no facilities; it is 20 years behind.
What is needed is storage sheds, more
wharfage in lieu of jetties, more engine
powe^ and good engines at that. Why,
within the last week four or five goods
engines have broken down. Fancy this,
wo can take 50 tons an hour into the
ship's hatches, but can't get that. De
murrage mounts up, and the cost is terri
ble.
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