The New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY). MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1579.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5838, 15 December 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY). MONDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1579.

The Te Aro Reclamation Act was reported to the Legislative Council on Saturday at the night sitting ; the report of the Select Committee was agreed to by the Council, and the Rill ordered to bo read a third time this day (Monday). If the LiU is to be passed in this session, it may be regarded as being now in the form which it will be got through, and we reprint it elsewhere, for the information of our readers in the city. Since its first introduction to the Assembly the Bill has been subjected to much alteration, mainlyand necessarily because of the passing of the Wellington Harbor Board Act, which creates a new jurisdiction for the port, and will thus relieve the City Council of those responsibilities in regard to harbor works proper which have heretofore devolved upon that body. The Act in its present shape authorises the reclamation, for municipal purposes only, of the whole or any portion of the seventy acres of foreshore at Te Aro, granted to the Mayor, Councillors, aud citizens of the city of Wellington, in the year 1874 j and, with the condition that the financial operation shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1876, it also authorises the raising by way of loan of any sum that may be require the purposes of the work, inch; ’ ° charges of compensation to thc.-. j _. whose legal or equitable rights ma\ j injuriously affected thereby.

Under ordinary circumstances this laud, widi other portions of the Lev;-3)ore, would have been handed over to toe Superintendwit of the Province of Wellington, in trust fur public purposes, under tlio provisions of the Public Reserves Act, 1854, and would then have been conveyed to the Corporation under a special Act of the Provincial Council, with such conditions as in the interests of the public it might hove been considered necessary to impose ; but it happened that in 1874 certain circumstances, to which wo need nor, refer, rendered it, desirable that the conveyance of the land from the Crown should he quickly effected, and tint the grant should be made to the Corporation directly, and not to the Superintendent in the ordinary course. Some correspondence look place noon this point between the Secretary for Crown Lands, the Superintendent of the Province, and the Mayor, the result being that it was agreed that the same riglus should bo reserved to the Crown in regard to the To Aro as to the Thorndon foreshore, viz., that any part of it required for public purposes might be taken upon repayment of the actual expenditure incurred upon the reclamation of such part. To affect a Crown Grant by expressed conditions makes it less useful as an instrument in financing, and the grant was therefore made free ; but it was understood that, as the reclamation could not bo effected without the authority of a special Act of the Legislature, the power of retaking the land upon the conditions we have mentioned should be given in that Act ; and, as we surmise, by way of index to this arrati"ement a few words were interlined in the Crown Grant before signature, which excepted a strip of 150 links in width along the sea frontage, as shown upon the plan, from the operation of the grant. The Corporate memory is sometimes oblivious of inconvenient engagements, and this one appears to have been forgotten. Attention was drawn to it at the eleventh hour by an inquisitive member of the Legislative Council, who has not even so much as the merit of being a representative of the people to justify that which, we understand, his Worship the Mayor regards as an impertinent interference with the right of the Corporation to do wrong. We have no doubt that the Hon. Mr. Mantelt,, who is the delinquent on this occasion, will be able to defend, and perhaps even to justify his action. The Act, as it has come out of the mill of the Legislative Council, is, wo think, in a sufficiently useful and workable form. It gives to the Corporation all necessary power to make the reclamation of the Te Aro foreshore, but with care for the interests of the public as well a,s for the rights of individuals. It gives the power of obtaining the necessary funds, by way of loan, subject only to the direct control and consent of the ratepayers. It seeks to prevent the diversion of ‘the proceeds of the sale of the reclamation from the legitimate purpose of payment of the cost of that work by the redemption of the loan, instead of allowing that expenditure to remain for all time a permanent charge upon the rates of tho already over-taxed citizens of Wellington. It seeks also to prevent the money for the work, when borrowed, from meeting the fate of the City Drainage Loan and being soaked inio the borough funds, to be drained away in ordinary expenditure. It is possible, however, that for these very particular reasons it may not meot the approval of his Worship the Mayor, or of that intelligent majority of the citizens whom he represents, and that even now the Bill may lapse.