The Evening Star TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1873.

Evening Star, Issue 3305, 23 September 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1873.

In all sessions of Purlinment., public attention is so concentrated upon a few leading questions, that numberless useful ami useless measures arc discussed, passed, or rejected, without the public being at all aware. We have before us several of these Bills immediately connected with this Province. The first of these is entitled “The Otago Reserves Act.” The object of this Act is twofold: to cancel certain reserves; and to confer on the Superintendent, on recommendation of the Provincial Council, the power of reserving any Waste Lands of the Crown as an endowment for “schools, colleges, or other educational institutions, generally; or specially, for any school, college, or educational institution, or for hospitals, infirmaries, benevolent asylums, or other charitable institutions, generally or specially, as the case may require.” The reserves cancelled and “declared to have been from the first making null and void” were, in the first instance, intended as endowments for the establishment and maintenance of High, Grammar, and District Schools, anil were estimated at the enormous area of 1,100,580 acres. The reserves proposed to be confirmed are 348,300 acres for endowment of Benevolent Institutions, 50,200 acres for the Clutha River Trust, and 487,750 acres for endowing Hospitals. Dependent upon the sanction of the Legislative Council, the Superintendent introduced a Bill entitled “ Otago Land Loan Security” This was to have been one of the first fruits of the Provincial Loans Act, and was intended to enable the Province to form one of those lines of railway so necessary to opening up the country, and which under its provisions could so advantageously have been made at comparatively light cost. The “special security” proposed by the Bill is ten miles on each side of a railway from Tuapeka to the Dunstan, a distance of sixty miles. As this area is set down in the Bill at an estimate of only 75,000 acres, we presume there lias been a printer’s error, as the area included in ten miles distance on each side of the line for sixty miles would be 708,000 acres. Most probably it should have been 750,000 acres, The estimated cost of the work is .£300,000. and as the land reserved, when opened up by railway, would, without doubt, fetch four or five times the upset price of agricultural land, if not recklessly sacrificed beforehand, there can be no doubt that the security would have been ample, without involving the necessity of one sixpence of the taxation the short-sighted policy of tire Council renders probable. Even at a pound an aero the security ollered would be more than double the cost of the line.

“ The Clyde Municipal Corporation Borrowing Bill” is to enable the Corporation of Clyde to borrow LB,OOO under authority of “ the Otago Municipal Corporations Ordinance, 1805,” for the purpose of throwing a bridge across the Molyneux.

Mr O’Bokkk introduced a Bill to empower the Governor to carry out certain engagements for grants of land at Stewart’s Island and * f the neighboring mainhmd,” I,t appears that in ISG I the island was .ceded by the Native owners to the Crown on certain conditions ; one of which was that certain land at Paterson’s Inlet should bo reserved for and divided amongst the half-castes living there. The area of this land proves insufficient to make provision for them and for those born on the island, and this Bill is intended to authorise the Governor to issue Crown grants for allotments not exceeding ten acres for “ each male, and eight acres for eacli female,” The further object of the Bill is to secure the European residents who have had land given to them hy the Native owners in possession of it, when it has been in occupation thirty years and upwards. The justice of this provision is set forth in the reason given for it, that those settlers were debarred fr/?jji preferring their claims to the property, through difficulty of communication and ignoring? pf the laws.

Mr .Bradshaw has mada on attempt to solvo the question of mining on private property, by introducing a. Bill to provide /or “ the resumption of land for the jm.i’lW f)f mining for gold or jjiJycr/ \V.o scarcely bow such a question can be dealt with. jLoy t),)e last twenty years it has puzzled %< most acute brains in Victoria, ami it is not likely to bo settled satisfactorily by this well-intended measure. He lias laid very tender consideration for the Ornamental, and excepts from being mined upop, orchards, vineyards, nurseries, plantations pp ornamental pleasure grounds: so that a l^ k v/ paths interspersed with shrubs would b.G mute siillieient to exclude the mine)', who as, t9 b,o prohibited also from touching l “ any la-mi/;/’ less extent in area than a quarter of an ” within a city or town or borough, or ol'cominp' withiuoue hundred feet of u house, manufactory, hospital, asylum, ehureh, public build- j, lug, tsuactu y t , (lain, reservoir, or water-' works.

Mr I * v k I-; proposes to i-e/inve the minors from a restriction, which fins l , bccji much complained of, .pul, which j seems «.ot likely to bn set at rest by; the curl and summary measure lie. 1 terms “The Miners’ Fights i&iouaiow*

Act, 1873.” The extension of the po\vei’ of the miner’s right is to give to the possessor liberty to mine in any part of New Zealand without further payment; although he may travel from Otago to Auckland to follow his occupation there. But since the miner’s right forms part of the Goldfields revenue of the Province, the Government of Auckland would naturally say that Otago ought not to be allowed to pocket the money authorising a miner to take Auckland gold. But no provision is made for a transfer of the money along with the person ; all that he is required to do being that he shall register his right before commencing work on such conditions as the Governor may prescribe. Possibly, a fee for registration equal to the value of his right. ______