WASTE LAND BOARD.

Evening Star, Issue 3355, 20 November 1873, Page 2

WASTE LAND BOARD.

The usual weekly meeting of the Board was held this morning. Present —The Chief Commissioner, and Messrs Bastings, Butterworth, Clark, Reid, and Strode, Mr G. F. Reid, for Messrs J. W. Robertson aud others, applied for a pastoral lease of 100,000 acres, north-east of Pyke’s Creek, on the West Coast. To be sold by auction on the usual terms ; assessment value of No. 440, a previous application, to be accepted. Mr Maitland reported on the application of Messrs Gellibrand and Co. for certain land in the Waikouaiti district, to the effect that a strip of land about five or six chains wide ou each bank of the river is sufficiently to support from thirty to forty miners—averaging a return to each of from L2 to L 7 per week, but generally nearest the smaller amount. Mr James Smith, who supported the application, said that a previous Board had engaged to put up the laud at 10s per acre, but this had never been done. The question as to the nature of the land had been referred to Air Maitland, whose report had beau just road. In justice to the applicants the Board should retrace its stops and carry out the original undertaking, [fc was clear that the only auriferous part was the narrow strip on the banks of the nver, and applicants would have no objection to a reservation of that portion : they had not the slightest wish to interfere with'the miners, but could not understand why the whole block of about 3,. r 00 acres should be locked up because of that small Strip—The Chief Commissioner said the sanction of the Superintendent and Provincial Council would be required, but that he himself saw no objection to the sale. —Mr Smith then said that he would take the whole block of both surveyed and unsurveyed land, subject to the reservation spoken of, and excluding all water-races, at Li per acre, which was agreed to. Messrs H. C. Clayton and others asked for authority to be recorded to mine ou part of section 12, block 19, Tnapeka East. The opinion of the Provincial Solicitor was that the Board “had no right to sell auriferous laud,” and that Mr Clayton’s remedy was against the Board. The Board decided that it was a matter for Executive action, and it was referred to the Government. Mr Haggitt, for Mr W. A. Tolmie, again applied for a pre-emptive right to purchase section 22, block G, Waipahee, ou run 78a ; and that failing the granting of such right of purchase, the Board would state a case for the opinion of a Judge of the Supreme Court, under section G of The Waste Land Board Appe 1 1 Act, ISG7. Mr Haggitt said he should not icpeat the arguments he had used on the application first being heard, but hoped to convince the Board that it should be granted. He agreed that no pre-emptive right had been received on run 7Sa, but that by arrangement with the Government, Mr Tolmie had been allowed to iqake a purchase,—The Chief Commisioner thought the pre-emptive right had clearly bech exercised, as the “arrangement” between the Government and Mr Tolmio was only as to the term of payment, and the public was not allowed to select until that gentleman had made his selection. It was resolved that the opinion of the Judge be asked whether, a pre-emptive right having already been exercised aud then the run sub-divided, similar rights can ho exercised in the subdivisions—new leases having been granted under a different Act; the case to bo prepared by the Provincial Solicitor. Mr Bastings, at the ropiest of the Government, brought before the Board a letter from Mr Reid when Provincial Secretary, to the Hon. Matthew Holmes, to the effect that if the latter stayed certain proceedings then in course of being taken by him for an illegal act (impounding on his land in run 57), _ expenses he had been put to would be repaid him, and “ that the land within his (Mr Holmes’s) fence on run 57, in the Traqnair Hundred, would not be interfered with.” Mr Bastings remarked that this piece of land was comprised within the late application of Mr Shand.—After some discussion as to the implied meaning of the word “interfere,” as used in the letter, it was resolved that all land comprised within run 57 in the Traqnair Hundred he temporarily withdrawn from sale, with the sanction of the Superintendent,