PROPOSED SALE OF WELLINGTON FORESHORE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4269, 25 November 1874, Page 2

PROPOSED SALE OF WELLINGTON FORESHORE.

TO TUB EDITOR. Sir, —I have to-day forwarded to the Superintendent a memorial on thr subject of the sale of the foreshore at Wellington. To publish memorials of this kind appears to be the fashion; witness Sir George Grey’s lecture to Sir J. Fergusson on the duty of Governors, founded apparently on Sir George’s personal experience of the natural failings and besetting sins of those exalted persons. I shall be obliged if you insert my memorial in an early issue.—l am, &c., J. C. Andrew, Wharcama, 10th November, 1574, To his Honor the Superintendent.— I have received notice that a memorial from M.P.C.’s to your Honor on the subject of your proposed sale of the reclaimed land and foreshore at Wellington is being circulated and signed in the country districts. So far as I understand the purport of this petition or memorial, from a short outline placed in my hands, I would willingly add ray name to the signatures, but to wait for the original, or a copy, to be forwarded to me here wouldinvolve along delay. I venture, therefore, as an M.P.C., to address myself individually to your Honor. I write to your Honor rather than to your Executive because, as far as I understand from your Honor’s past words and actions, the Executive, both the fixtures and moveable parts, do not represent, except accidentally, a majority in the Council. They appear to hold ottice simply as your Honor’s nominees. I beg to enter my protest against the proposed sale until after the Council shall have been consulted. Some persons are of the opinion, as was anticipated by Earl Grey at the date of the Constitution Act, that provincial institutions are tending to a municipal form. It would be monstrous in the mayor of a municipalily to alienate a property of the corporation mxmmca oy ijis tone' reserved ror improvement before its sale, without previously consulting that council. Sucli an act by the elected head of the province may be legal, but it seems to me to only be legal after the fashion of the debased French Empire, without the varnish of greatness which gilded the actions of that departed institution, I beg respectfully to request your Honor not to proceed further witli this matter till after the opinion of the Council has been taken. At the next ordinary session of the Council new estimates mid a fresh Appropriation Act will be necessary. There will be ample time between that date and the enactment of future law by the Geueral Assembly to make away with as much of the estate of the province as the Council may advise. If it is thought otherwise, let an immediate session be called. A crafty steward, the agent or factor of a property held in common, but possibly soon to be divided amongst the several owners, may raise a false glitter by felling the timber and selling everything the letter of the law allows ; but such a course would ill merit the approval of those permanently interested, if taken without their being consulted, and, it may be, against their wishes. I respectfully pray your Honor to ascertain the opinion of your Council before proceeding further in this matter,—-I have, &c.. J. C. Andrew, M.P.C.