THE CORPORATION AND THE PROPOSED FOURTH SCHOOL.

Evening Star, Issue 3361, 27 November 1873, Page 2

THE CORPORATION AND THE PROPOSED FOURTH SCHOOL.

The following letter was read at yesterday’s meeting of the City Council Wellington, 19th November, 1873. Sir,—-In leading over the late Dunedin papers, I perceivethat there is a want of thorough knowledge qn the part of the City authorities, and of the citizens, as to the real position of tho City reserves, and therefore purpose briefly to give you a prefix on the subject, which may possibly be of use to the Corporation, Under the original terms of purchase between the New Zealand Company and the Otago Association, it was agreed that the settlers in the Otago Block should be formed into a Corporation, and that said Corporation should purchase as an endowment out of the block, at a cost of L2 per acre, 100 properties, each property to consist of I-aero town land, 10 acres suburban, and 50 acres rural land, not for Dunedin, but for the whole Otago block. During the existence of the New Zealand Company, 19 j-acrc sections in Dunedin, 17 suburban of 10 acres, and 19 rural of 50 acres, wore thus reserved ; but as the Corporation had not been formed up to the year ISIS, when the New Zealand Company relinquished their charter to the Crown, no payment had been made for these properties, nor has any been made up to the present day. The Imperial Government, in accepting the relinquishment of the charter of the New Zealand Compaii}', undertook to carryout all the engagements of the Company, and in the year 1852, in granting a Constitution to New Zealand, special provision was’niade in the Act to meet the cases of Otago and' Canterbury. The Constitution Act virtually handed over the administration of the affairs of the Colony to the colonists themselves. In 1854 it was mooted that it was the intention of the Colonial Government to dispose of these municipal reserves for tho benefit of the Colony. Hearing this, I (being then a member of the Otago Provincial Executive) wrote Messrs Macandrow, John Cargill, and Cntten, the then Otago members of the House of Representatives, who were at the time attending the session in Auckland, protesting against the sale of these reserves, the result of which was that the sale was stopped, and ultimately Crown grants wore issued to the Superintendent. These reserves were, in 1857, handed over to the Corporation of the City, by ordinance of the Provincial Council, for purposes of public utility. Under the original terms of purchase already alluded to, certain reserves were to be made < in and around the City of Dunedin, for recreation and amusement of the inhabitants. Under this head are included the Town Belt, the Botanical Gardens, the Octagon, <ko., the management of which was transferred to the Corporation, by ordinance of the Provincial Council, in 18(15, These reserves cannot, be alienated from their original purposes excepting by an Act of the General Assembly, and, as every settler in Dunedin has a vested right in them, the forms attached to private Bills, would, in my opinion, have to be gone through before the Assembly woidd deal with them at all. Before any of the settlers were allowed to select their town properties, the New Zealand Company’s agent, under instructions, reserved from sale certain other properties, such as water frontages, sites for public buildings, quarries, &c., which have since been handed over to the (lorporation, in 1807 and 1873, by Provincial Council Ordinances. The reserves referred to in the Ordinance of 1807 were only secured after a severe struggle in the session of the General Assembly of 1805, through the dogged perseverance of Mr Mason, your first Mayor, Mr A. E. Burns, and myself, who, having right and justice on our side, secured the support of a large majority of the Assembly. Thus we were enabled to beard the Weld Government, and to carry onr point, notwithstanding the fact that the Government had then a large working majority in the House, and showed the most determined opposition to the granting of these reserves. The Crown grants were issued after Mr Weld’s Government had been supplanted by Mr Stafford’s, and no sooner had the grant for the Princes street or Maori reserve been issued than he handed over to Mr Mantell (a great Maori doctor) tho sum of L4OO, for the purpose of contesting with the Superintendent the legal issue of the "Crown grant. Now, this reserve, having then a frontage to the water, was made, under the authority before referred to, prior to a single section being selected by any of the settlers, and had the Immigration Barracks erected upon it. In 1852 Mr Mantell was acting as Crown Lands Commissioner for Otago, and mustliave known of this reserve having been made years before ; yet he wrote to Governor Grey recommending that it should be set aside as a reserve for the Maoris. Sir George Grey—l believe in ignorance of the position of the re-serve-approved of Mr Mautell’s recommendation, who then marked it off on the map as a Maori reserve. This action has been a loss to the City of not less than LIO,OOO, and for which the citizens have to thank the Hon. E. W. Stafford and the Hon. W. 15. D, Mantell. From what I have stated it will appear that the citizens hud no direct right to any of the reserves, excepting those portions set aside for recreation and amusement; that they have derived them entirely through the liberality of the Provincial Council, and for the general benefit of the citizens. There can, therefore, be no legal difficulty in the Corporation providing a site or sites for City schools for the use of the citizens’ children. To me, who has had so much to do in securing these reserves to the City, and who has received such assistance from the Otago members of the Assembly, the Provincial Council, and Provincial Government, it seems almost incredible that the Corporation, if they knew the case, could for a moment refuse so reasonable a request as that submitted to the Education Board and the Provincial Government, in reference to the erection of a Fourth School, —I have, &c., William H. Reynolds. To his Worship the Mayor of the City of Dunedin. t A motion was carried thanking Mr Reynolds for the information supplied by him to the Council.—A letter from the Under-Sec-retary acknowledged the receipt of a communication from the Council, inquiring whether, in the event of the Corporation placing at the disposal of the Dunedin School Committee a site for a Fourth District School, the Government would be prepared to give the Corporation an equivalent in the shape of reclaimed or other laud ; and the Government, in reply, stated, in the event of a school-site being found by the Corporation, the Government would relinquish any claim it might have in respect to the 33ft. of laud between the Princes street Reserve and the sections fronting Bond street, belonging to the Corporation.—The letter was referred to the Reserves Committee.