PROGRESS COMMITTEE MEETING.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 281, 25 July 1874, Page 3

PROGRESS COMMITTEE MEETING.

The Committee appointed at the late public meeting met on Wednesday night. All the members were present. Correspondence was received by telegram from the Goldfields Secretary and Mr. Donald Eeid relative to the opening of land for settlement near Naseby—a letter lo follow telegrams.

Outward correspondoncn to the \fayors of Palmerston and Clyde,.and to the Secretaries of Progress Committees or Mining Associations at St. Bathans,. Hyde, Hamilton, Blacks, Tinker's Gully, Drybread, &c, was read, asking co-operation in the railway movement. The following memorial was read and adopted, on the motion of Mr. Cbaig, seconded by Mr. Jackson : '<

The Hon. the Premier, New Zealand: ! Sib,—Your memorialists are awnre that the Provincial G-overmnei t of OttßO intend to apply to Parliament for authority to borrow £500,000 on the sperinl security of certain, lands, to the extent of 2,000,000 acres in their Province. '■',,. ■■-'

This large reserve is selected where the lands are loosely classified as pastoral country, though'a great portion only requires, the' steady dcvelopement of railway communication to be valuable agricultural land. Certain large branch railways are proposed, to be paid for from funds accruing from 'this reserve. Neither does the Bill propose to confine works proposed on the above security to railways; as, in the Provincial Council' Supplementary Estimates of last session, an item appears, among others— £15,000 Kakanui Harbor—contingent on the success of the' loan agreed to be applied for. Clearly, what applies to Kakanui would apply also to Dunedin or Oamaru, where the expense reaches hundreds of thousands, instead of tens.

Your memorialists do not objest to such works being constructed. What they object to is the revenues of an immense interior district (in which they reside, and in which they are prepared to permanently settle) being devoted to works on the coast before the vast extent of Crown lands reserved is made of best value by a railway being constructed right through it from Palm rston to Clyde. It is obvious that the sum proposed to be raised will very speedily be exhausted, and then the Province will have to apply to the Assembly for special powers—or take them under the Public Wirks Act, or the; 150 th section of the Otago Waste Lands Act—to sell as pastoral country immense portions of the reserve, at a loss to the Crown of from 15s. to 255. per acre—for, as unopened pastoral country, the nett resultß could not rise on an average above 10s. per acre. Your memorialists therefore pray that the Government, should they be prepared to entertain favorably the Otago Loan Bill, will insist upon lines of railway to open up and make of best value the .Crown lands propo ei to. be dealt with, being placed in the schedule as first charges against-the loan to bV raised. And your as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Mr. Shannon moved—"That a copy of the memorial be forwarded to the different bodies i likely to obtain support for the.above memorial." Seconded by Mr. Mulholland, and carried. The Chairman was authorised to telegraph to the Premier relative to the deepening of the Sludge Channel. Messrs. Collett, Jackson, and Shannon consented to take charge of the railway memorial in JNaseby. The meeting then adjourned.