REPORT

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 78, 7 August 1869, Page 3

REPORT

OP THE COMMISSIONEES ON THE ADMINISTBATION OP CEO¥N IiAKDS IN OTAGK).

"We summarize this report, which gives the most impartial and judicious statement of the Land Question we have as yet met with. The complaints of maladministration which occasioned the appointment of the Commission . arose from two classes, — (1) from the settlers on the old Hundreds ; and (2) from the inhabitants of the Goldfields. I. — WA2TT OF LAND O3T THE OLD HUNDEEDS. (a.) In reference to the sale of land on Hundreds at 10s. per acre, the evidence produced ia summarized, the conclusion arrived at being that as an act of policy it called for no particular animadversion, being based on a deliberate decision of the Provincial Council. Secondly, the sale of land at 10s. an acre was objected to as illegal, because tlie period of seven years had not elapsed from the date of the land being opened for sale. It appears that Major Richardson, while Superintendent, had, in conjunction with the Waste Lands Board,, and in terms of section 18 .of the Eegulations, adopted the policy of withholding all land in Hundreds from sale until declared open by a distinct resolution. Now although in every instance of sale of land at 10s. the proclamation constituting the block a Hundred had been made seven years previous to the sale, it could not be said that the land had remained open the full period of seven years when a Superintendent and Wstete Lands Board withheld it from sale for a considerable portion of that time. The Commissioners are therefore of opinion that the Act has not been complied with. (#.) Covenants with RunJiolders.

It was further complained that the Provincial Government have deprived themselves of power to provide more commonage by declaring new or extending old Hundreds, by enieriug into covenant with the runholders outside the Goldfields, by which they are precluded from, declaring Hundreds on such runs. The report enters very fully into the question of the Covenants, showing that while the Superintendent has no legal right to limit the exercise of the Governor's power of declaring Hundreds, the covenants may be equally binding in honour and conscience if entered into in good faith by the runholders. The quantity of land reserved by, the Government, viz., blocks. 305,500 acres ; land remaining in Hundreds, 415,651 acres; and cancelled leases, 240,000 acres, in all 961,151 acres, appears to have been sufficient j and the covenant could hardly be repudiated because the Government made an injudicious selection. From the evidence of the runholders, there ia a strong presumption of the existence of an equitable engagement. The rents were increased, and in return for this large payment a more secure title was presumably given. Mr. Driver says in his evidence, " As an instance of the

impression produced upon the public generally of the increased security of tenure by the leases, I may mention Bun 137, near Tuapeka. This run, under the license which had four or four and a-half years to run, could hardly have been sold at all. After the lease had been obtained, it became very much in request, and was finally sold for about £6500, without the stock — about four shillings per acre. This is the most striking instance, but there are many similar." II. — WA2TT OF LAND OUT GOLDFIELDS.

The runholders look upon the compromise by which two blocks of 5000 acres each on each run can be .opened for agriculture as final, but they also depend upon (a.) Covenants with the Superintendent. The conclusion arrived at by the Commissioners in regard to these is that the legal right to take the runs out of the Goldfields haa not been surrendered by the Provincial Government, although^an equitable engagement to that ellect was decidedly understood. (h.) What persons are demon I; «;7 X* •> J The persons loudest 'n iheir demands are not the go -.. g</crs permanently and sok"y inj.'oyed in digging, many of whoip \.ivc no doubt an aversion to any other .a-suit. JStill among the number are many as genuine and probably more useful membert of their class. Ths second class are the occupants of the Goldfields towns, which are thus pourtrayed :—: —

Of these, Lawrence, Roxburgh, and Queenstown are the most important, and begin to assume the appearance ofordinary permanent towns, the first especially having some large and expensive buildings of brick and stone. But the rest might be described as small blue villages of corrugated iron, or the flimsiest wooden buildings packed together in streets, like the booths at a fair, with an enormous percentage of so-called hotels, the chief portion of the fronts of all the houses consisting of a mere framework covered with boards, or even painted canvas, with the names of the hotels and storekeepers inscribed upon them in flaming capitals. These sufficiently indicate the fleeting and temporary character of the collection of dwellings forming the ! latter towns ; but no doubt they contain the nucleus of permanent settlements. Meanwhile, the number of hotels shut up or deserted show that the palmy days of gold diggings have gone by. It is no doubt in consequence of the diminution in the produce of goldh'elds, and of the population employed uj)on them, that many of the storekeepers, butchers, bakers, and others of various occupations and callings, are now so anxious to engage in farming or stock-keeping. This they very naturally desire to do to eke out a subsistence in conjunction with their regular pursuits, which, under the circumstances, are much less remunera- \ tive, and leave much of their time unoccupied. (c.) Land acquired by Government. Tuapeka Gold Field— 1. A block of 95, C0) acres, in round numbers, around the towns of Lawrence and Havelock. 2. At Waipori, 3,500 acres. Mount Benger Gold Field, and Nohomai — 3. 3,867 acres adjoining town of Roxburgh. 4. 2,500 acres at Moa Flat. 5. 2,500 under Spy law Mountain. 6. 2,500 acres at the junction of the Beaumont and Clutha Rivers. 7. 20,000 acres at the back, i.e. west, of Mount Benger. Dunstan Gold Field — 8. 2,046 acres on the Obelisk Flat. 9. 2,050 acres adjoining the town of Alexandra. 10. 11,240 acres adjoining the town of Clyde. 11. 1,136 acres at the forks of the Chatto. 12. 2,826 acres on the Manuherikia. 13. 2,500 acres on a branch of the Manuherikia. Walcatipib Gold Field — 14. A large reserve of 155,369 acres surrounding the towns of Queenstown, Arrowtown, Franktown, and the, intermediate comntry. Of the above blocks, ' Nos. 1, 3, 7, 9, 10, * and 14, containing an aggregate of 287,486 acres, are open for agricultural leases, and the unleased portion for commonage. Nos. 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, and 13 are open only for leases — the unleased portions remaining in the hands of the runholders on whose runs the blocks have been selected. With respect to the blocks taken out of runs, the complaints of the settlers are generally that they are insufficient in number and too small for their requirements ; or that they are inconveniently situated, being too far off to be used in connection with their existing .pursuits* ; but, principally, that they can only be used for agriculture under lease, and that the lessees have no rights of commonage. As to the sufficiency of blocks of land open for leasing, the Qvidence geoms to show that there is a considerable amount of land still unoccupied in blocks at a distance from towns or populous diggings. In the large Tuapeka .Reserve most, if not all, the best agricultural land is occupied or applied for. r Qf No. 3, most of the land west of the Clutha is occupied and cultivated ; but the part of it on the ea3t side of the river is commonly known as the Shingle Block, I and, from all the evidence taken, appears +o be worthless for the purposes required, and scarcely an acre of it applied for. The 20,000 acre block (INo. 7) at the ' back of Mount Benger, expressly set [ apart for pastoral commonage, is rather [ difficult of access, aud only nt for summer | pasture, being so high that, in winter, the snow renders it useless. The block of 2,046 acres (No. 8) in the Flat, is scarcely occupied ai all, and I apparently consists of good land. The objection probably ia that it is not near enough to the gold towns or diggings to be suitable for two classes of pursuits to be carried on simultaneously, as explained above. Blocks 12 and 13, on the Manuherikia, may be liable to the same objection ; but they have only just been thrown open for application, and the result has not yet appeared.

(d.) Commonage. This question is entered into very fully, but our space does not permit our laying it before our readers this week. We shall republish it in our next issue. 111. COiTPLAIKTS AS TO LA2TDS BESEEMED WITHEf GOLDITIELDS. The next class of complaints to be dealt with are those of the alleged mismanagement by the Provincial Government of the lands actually reserved from lease, or acquired under the covenants from the ruuholders,— first, with respect to the bestowal of the rights of pasture ; secondly, with respect to the issue of agricultural leases. The first grievance of this kind brought before the Commissioners, had reference to the large block called the Tuapeka Agricultural Reserve. By a sort of Lattledore-and-shuttlecock legislation too often adopted with respect to the relations between ordinary Crown lands and those in goldfields, which takes away a power in an Act relating to one class of lauds to liave it tossed back again by the Act of the same year relating to the other cla3s, the lands within a goklfield, which, by The Gold Pie! Is Act,' 186(3," are sneoHly expect J ,vu the operation of '• Crown .. '„i, . Act," are by " The Crown f«m .. • 1866," made, ".notwithstandii _- an. . ing m uU^-otUeiTAct 1 to the contrary,' subject to be dealtwitlr in the same manner as other Crown lands (sius. 323), under this or some similar privisions and delegated powers it is presumed. The Superintendent has made regulations for the election of a Board of I Wardens to manage the pasturage-com-monage in the reserve, the Chairman cf the Board being appointed by himself. The agricultural lessees settled on the reserve complain that a great portion of this commonage is monopolized by two or three sheep-farmers, whose large flocks spreading over it coop up the cattle of the lessees into » narrow sx>;ice far too small for their keep— as the sheep, by closer feeding, can always expel the larger animals. The Board, under these circumstances, proposed a regulation to the Superintendent by which the sheep-farmers in question would have been confined to about 5,000 acres of land at one corner of the reserve. This seemed an arrangement very liberal to the sheep owners. But the Superintendent, say the complainants, having been visited by "one of the Board, refused to ratify the resolution, and sent back a countur proposal to the effect that 16,000 acres of the reserve should be laid off for sheep— and that in the part of it nearest to the small settlers' cultivations,, and therefore most wanted for their cattle. This would have given the sheepo\vner3 so large a portion of the commonage as to leave the evil nearly as great as it was. The Warden thus accused of influencing the Superintendent, your Commissioners found, from evidence given on oath before them, is the owner of no less than 9,000 sheep ; so that in fact thia very reserve, excluded specially from ordinary depasturing licenses ox* leases to provide commonages for small agriculturalists, to that extent ia being turned into a run for a large sheepholclert The reason given by the Superintendent for not having acceded to the proposition of the Board is, that it wa3 one- of a set of regulations some of which so far exceeded the legal powers of the Board to make, that His Honor was advised by the Provincial Solicitor he could not enforce them. Your Commissioners expected further light to have been thrown upon this snbject by Mr. Hughes, a member of the Waste Lands Board, but have not been able up to the present time to obtain the whole of that gentleman's evidence. It is true that tlie Wardens had tlie power of determining tlie actual number of cattle, great or small, each occupant might run upon the reserve, and might have prevented the abuse by exercise of this power. They seem, however, to have preferred rectifying the evil by exercising another power — that of marking off a portion of the reserve for sheep— but were frustrated as above stated. It is. the duty of your Commissioners to express their decided opinion that a very serious abuse of a public trust, an act of mal-administration of public property highly detrimental to public interests, has in this instance taken place, the responsibility for which appears, from all tho evidence that has been laid before the Commissioners, to rest mainly with the Provincial Government of Ofcago, becaud& it can scarcely be doubted that had the Superintendent caused the particulars in which the Board of Wardens had exceeded their powers to have been pointed out to them, they could have made the necessary alterations in the regulations,, so as to have permitted the requisite approval of that particular one, which would have piit an end to or in a great degree diminished the abuse in question. Your Commissioners are of opinion that in all cases of Boards of Wardens appointed to manage such reserves within goldfields, the Chairman of-the~i*oaf&" should be elected from their number by themselves ; but that assessments should be fixed by law or regulations, and collected* by. officers not under the control of the Boards. . iy. — AGItICUIiTTJBAL LEASES. The alleged grievances are — 1. The limitation to 50 acres. 2. The delay in deciding on applications. 3. The heavy deposit required. 4. Expenses of survey have, in somecases, been charged twice. 1. The evidence,- in the opinion of 'the Commission, quite bears out the? i first complaint. The least amount appears to be 200 acres. 2. The delay is often very vexatious* and has not been satisfactorily accounted for. 3. The evil here chiefly consists in, multiplying the charges in. pi'oportion. to the multiplication oi' toe blocks. A charge which might be reasonable for one block becomes excessive when applied to four block, and monstrous when such blocks are contiguous, and, might be included in one survey plan, one boundary line, and oue lease. 4. This complaint arose from the attempt made by the G-eneral Government to obtain the- management of claa Goldfields.