Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1864.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IV, Issue 205, 16 December 1864, Page 1 (Supplement)

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1864.

A Mr. Hall gives notice of motion in the General Assembly “ for leave to bring in a bill to enable Provincial Legislatures to pass laws authorizing a compulsory taking of lands for works of a public nature.” This would seem to intimate that Mr. Hall concurs in our Provincial Legislature's “ Highways Act,” for the most importent clause in that Act was the one relating to the arbitrary powers to be vested in Road Boards to take lands for public purposes. At the time of the passing of that Act through the Provincial Council here, we protested against it, partly upon the ground of its arbitrary nature, but principally upon the ground of its provisions being entirely contrary to British law, and, by consequence, utterly null and void. It is, however, fortunate in the interests of the people at large that there is an over-ruling Statute Book, which sets certain.'and defined limits to the legislative propensities of our local and other politicians—otherwise it would go hard indeed with some classes of people, very often. It is rather remarkable—or it would be rather remarkable only we are used to remarkable things by this time—that the legal wisdom specially retained to assist our Provincial Government upon occasion, was unable to detect in the Act to which we refer the fact of its eniirelj unconstitutional bearing, and thus either from carelessness or ignorance, leave the Government exposed to the shafts of its enemies, and to the unalloyed snubbings of Attorney-Generals. Now we find this Mr. Hall endeavoring to introduce a bill into the General Assembly for a purpose almost entirely coincident with our Government’s little affair, and apparently he is just as ignorant as our own Government and its lawyer seem to have been of the fact that no colonial legislature has any right whatever to pass Acts which are likely to affect the question of the ownership of the soil. In England, before a railway or other company, or even the Government itself can do anything in the way of disturbing men’s landed properties, a special Act of Parliament must be obtained for that purpose. The grants of land issued to land purchasers in New Zealand come directly from the Crown, and have nothing at all to do with

the Colonial Legislature, whether Provincial or General, and therefore it is clear that, seeing the title to the land conies from the Crown and not from the Colonial Governments, it belongs to the Crown, and to the Crown only by special Act of Parliament, to alter, interfere with, or in any way disturb the soil of that land which it lias granted away to any person. The case is perfectly clear, and in proportion as the case is clear so is this provision just and fair ; for what would be the upshot of the interference of unscrupulous and profoundly interested local Governments having such an arbitrary power in their hands ? The upshot would be that no man’s land would be safe from the chances of an irruption of Government officials decreeing, ordering, and superintending, without the slightest regard to the owner’s rights, interests, or feelings, the execution of some piece of work, which they choose to call “ work for the public good.” Again, by the same rule, although Provincial Governments have the power to define and mark off a certain line of road, it has no right whatever to alter that line of road when thus marked off ; for otherwise there would be no end to the lines of road, and every succeeding engineer -would probably find some great objection to his predecessor’s ideas of roads, and proceed to make out another line according to his ideas, and so on, utterly regardless of the vested interests of the landowner—vested interests which in such cases are sacred, and would be most certainly upheld by any jury under the sun.