Correspondence.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 612, 18 September 1858, Page 5

Correspondence.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times.

Sir, —I trust you will allow me to correct a misapprehension under which your leading article of Wednesday last appears to have been written. It is there stated, as an apology for the Waste Lands Act of the last session, that—

" The Imperial Government not only disallowed the Waste Lands Act, 1856, but also sent stringent instructions to the Governor, instructions which were laid before the General Assembly, to the effect that the provinces were on no account to be allowed to legislate upon matters which might affect the security for the .guaranteed loan." Permit me to assure you that no such instructions were ever laid before the Assembly, or alleged to have been received by the Government. Ministers asserted that, owing to the tenor of srecent communications from the Home Government, they would not feel themselves justified in assenting to further provincial legislation on the subject of the waste lands; in spite, however, of repeated applications from individual members, and of a formal demand from the House of Eevpresentatives, no document justifying such a resolution was ever produced. It appears most strange that if any despatch had been received, which would fairly bear the ministerial interpretation, it should have been so pertinaciously ■withheld. .

The Imperial Loan Act, it is true, requires that all laws of the General Assembly affecting the security given by the colony for the loan ot £500,000 should be reserved for the Queen's assent; but neither the letter nor the spirit of the Act requires that Provincial Legislation on this subject should cease ; both would be satisfied by a reservation for her Majesty's assent of any Provincial loans affecting the security in question. Whatever reasons induced the ministry to introduce a measure which has deprived Provincial Legislatures of the power of regulating the sale and disposal of the Waste Lands, such a proceeding was neither required by the Imperial Loan Act, nor, so far as is. shown by evidence, called for by the Imperial Government.

I remain Sir, your obedient servant, JOHN HALL.

Christchurch, Sept. 16, 1858,

[Mr. Hall is undoubtedly a good authority on the subject of papers laid before the House : our authority for stating that the "instructions" were laid before the General Assembly is also a good one. There is a mistake somewhere which we will enquire into. The general question however remains untouched, viz: whether the Imperial Government, when they granted the guarantee, and disallowed the Act of 1856, were under the impression that the General Government had or had not power over the waste lands. It appears to us that our good faith would be compromised by taking advantage of technicalities Ed.]