Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 1019, 17 May 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1871.

If any of our readers will take the trouble to refer back to our issue of the sth inst., they will find an article extracted from a late English journal, entitled "The Wrongs of the Soil," in which is described the gradual withdrawal from public use and occupancy ot a piece of unenclosed green, and its appropriation for private uses. The circumstances in connection with this public wrong are strongly recalled to out mind by a Bill now before our own Provincial Council, which has for its proposed object the placing of a portion of the common lands of Napier, known as Olive Square, in the hands of trustees. We are glad to find that the inhabitants of the town are awake to the threatened danger, and have already presented a petition, very numerously signed, protesting against it. Our readers generally will be aware that the piece of land in question is situated in the centre of the town, and that the road from Ernerson-street, through Carlyie-street, to the west end, runs directly across it—making, in fact, as it now stands, the one principal street of the town in that direction. Mr Sutton observed that no road would be closed becau.se no road was laid out across the square in the map of the town. This, we submit, is foreign to the question as a road does in fact exist, and that cannot be diverted without producing considerable inconvenience and annoyance. Mr Sutten said fuither that "the land had been conveyed by a grant from the Governor to the Superintendent for the purpose of public recreation, and the public had no more light to use any por Hon of it as a road than they had over any other private ground." This is sufficient of itself to show the risk involved in the trust scheme. As a recreation ground it is already in use, and so long as it remains in the hands of the public it can be so used, and the right of way across it be in no way interfered with ; but let it fall into the fyands of trustees, and we shall probably in a few years (ind it leased for some object oi other, as is already the case with most of the town reserves ; and, as in the case of Flimby, Ave may find it railed off from the public use, and appropriated to other purposes. Such things have been done, and the rightful owners, the public, left without remedy, for, as truly remarked by Lieutenant-Colo-nel Lambert during the discussion, "the difficulty of restraining trus-

tees in well known. Their power over land is almost equal to that of a freehold owner, and nothing short of legal process could affect them," Mr Sutton might perhaps be able to get up a counter petition, but we question if he could get aa respectable a number of signatures to such as that endorsed on that presented last night; while we are sure that if an effort had been made by it* promoters for the pur pose, that petition would have shown a number far in excess of that which it already bear?.