[From the Government Gazette, Mar. 24.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 590, 29 March 1851, Page 4

[From the Government Gazette, Mar. 24.]

(No. 51.) Downing Street, 13th August, 1850. Sir, 1. I have received and laid before the Queen your despatch No. 130 of the Ist of October last, t’ansmitting an Ordinance passed by yourself and the Legislative Council of New Zealand on the 23rd of August, 1849, intituled “ An Ordinance to regulate the occupation of Waste Lands of the Crown in the Province of New Ulster,” and I have received the Queen’s commands to signify to you that Her Majesty has been graciously pleased to confirm and’allow that Ordinance. You will communicate Her Majesty’s decision to the inhabitants of New Zealand by a Proclamation to be issued in the usual and most authentic manner. 2. Although I should not wish to dictate practical amendments in a case in which I am disposed to defer in a great degree to your local knowledge and experience, there are some provisions of the Act on which I think it right to make some suggestions. 3. In the 12th clause which requires persons depasturing cattle on the Waste Lands of the Crown to send in a return of such cattle in their possession on the Ist of September in each year, and on which return the payments are to be calculated, no precaution is taken against the subsequent depasturing on Crown Lands of cattle acquired after the Ist of September, or of cattle which at that date may have been depastured elsewhere. It appears to me that without some regulation on that point the Public Revenue might in such cases be easily defrauded, unless some peculiar circumstances should exist in the case of New Zealand of which I am not aware. 4. I further perceive that by the 33rd clause of the Act the Wardens of the Hundreds are authorized to raise an assessment not exceeding ss. a-head on great cattle, and Is. a-head on small. Such an assessment would appear to me to be very high if levied to its full extent, but at the same time I do not attempt at this distance to express a confident opinion on such a point in opposition to the views of yourself and bf the Legislative Council: you may probably have seen sufficient reason to feel satisfied that the power thus given bv the Act would not be abused, and I think it enough to draw your attention to the subject. 5. You express your opinion that great benefits would result from regulations which

would entrust to officers elected by the in- i habitants of a Hundred the appropriation of t that portion of the Land Revenue raised t within such Hundred which is applicable to i the execution of public works, such as roads, 1 bridges, &c. I agree with you in the gene- t ral principle of the measure which you pro- i pose, and I cannot more clearly indicate to 1 you my own views on this subject than by < referring you to those which are expressed I by the Committee of the Privy Council in < their Report on the Australian Constitution. I enclose a copy of that Report and it will ex- i plain to you the policy which I should desire to ' see adopted in New Zealand on this subject, i As it might be doubted, however, whether the proposed faculty of dealing with part of the Land Sales Revenue could be bestowed on the Hundreds consistently with the Royal Instruction, I transmit to you an additional Royal Instruction under the Royal Sign Manual and Signet, by which Her Majesty has been pleased to empower you to devolve upon the Wardens or Officers of the Hundred the expenditure of one-third of the gross proceeds of the Revenue raised within the limits of that division. I have the honor to be, J Sir, i Your most obedient humble servant, (Signed) Grey. Governor Sir George Grev, K.C.8., &c., &c., &c.