The Tuapeka Times. THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1870. "Measures, not Men."

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 113, 7 April 1870, Page 4

The Tuapeka Times. THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1870. " Measures, not Men."

At last we are put in possession of the report of the Commissioners appointed during the last sitting of the Provincial Council to inquire into matters connected with the Island Block, and also with copies of what purports to be all the correspondence and documents relating to the same. We may candidly confess our surprise atthe absence of letters known to exist, and which the Government appear determined to keep in the background. There is not even a copy of one of the applications made in Dunedin by parties for the purchase of the land. The correspondence before us consists of a series of letters and petitions forwarded to the Government by those parties who have all along persistently endeavoured to settle upon the Block in question coupled with any amount of red-tapeism. in the shape .of memoranda from one department to another. But even with the few letters and papers which the Government could not well manage to screen, we cannot help noticing the contemptible and unenviable position in which Mr. Macandrew and his colleagues have placed themselves. On the 16th November, Mr. Willis, on behalf of the Government, writes :—": — " The policy of the , Government is, not to- sell the land on the Goldfields, but to promote the settlement thereof, by every means at its disposal." Our readers may judge of how great the desire of the Government is to settle the residents on the " Goldfields- whea we state that in the Mount Benger district, the residents, have for several years past been fruitlessly agitating for the purpose of obtaining land for settlement, and more particularly, the Island Block. At last, on the 23rd of January, 1869, Mr Macandrew writes in reply to a petition he had received, that the Block would be open for application for leasing purposes as soon as its boundaries had been denned. On the - 27th of thesame month a proclamation was issued declaring the Block open for application; between that date and the 12th of March, a large number of persons appear to have used ever^ endeavour to induce Warden Woocplp receive applications for the same^'out which he in a strange and apparently shuffl-

ing manner, declined to do. Qft the 4tli February, Warden Wood writes, to the Secretary of Lands and Works, \ recommending that the Surveyor be instructed to lay the Block off into sections, to, facilitate his work as lie anticipated their would be a scramble for the land, ignoring at the same time the fact that it had already been, declared open. On the 7*h April the applicants again write to th,e Government, complaining that Mr. Wood had declined to hear their applications, and in reply are informed by the Secretary of Lands and Works that Mr. Wood had a^ain been instructed to hear the applications, and to sanction any alteration in survey to suit the applicants. On the 18th April Mr. Wood writes stating he had refused to recommend twenty-seven of the applications, nearly all of them, because the parties had not taken up the inferior land in the Block, and for other reasons childish and absurd. He also has the assurance to assert that some of the applications were not hona fide, and made by parties for the purpose of speculation — two parties having applied for 1000 acres of the best land. We have carefully looked over Mr. Wood's returns, and

again note the strange, careless, and

even reckless manner in which he makes his assertions. We cannot find that the applications of any two parties exceed 300 acres, and there is only one case of an applicant applying for more than 100 acres. On the 2Slh April some of the applicants again complained to the Superintendent of Mr. Wood's declining to, recommend their applications, and stating that when Mr. Wood refused to recommend them, lie said his reason, for so doing was that he did not wishto implicate the Government any further in the matter than they wore at that time. They also assert that Mr. Wood, in the public caurt, stated the rea&o^ for the steps he had taken, in declining to recommend their applica-

tions, was owing to their having

written the letter referred to, dated the 7th April, and that they would hay& been better off if they had not written it. This is not intimidation, or anything like it — sno language indeed for one of our goldfieltU wardflfc*. In reply to the last letter, the Government wrote expressing approval of what Mr, Wood had done, and cooly informed the parties inte- A rested that they can have their dbposit money returned to them on application. We next find a note to the effect that a certain letter, addressed to the Government by Mr. Mervyn, had been mislaid. We

will, in a charitable view, give the.ni the credit of having mislaid it x although the hesitating and reluctant manner in which the correspondence was furnished by the Government to the Council, leads us to entertain grave doubts as to the whereabouts cf. it and other documents which have not yet been produced. We next find a number of strong letters of remonstrance, from different parties against the Government, selling the land, according to their announced intention advertised in the Gazette,, and forcibly pointing out the result of such sale would be> that the land would be purchased and monopolised by one party. Mr. Wood kindly and considerately steps in, strongly recommending the land should be sold, because it was known, to be highly auriferous — the very reason which we, in. our simpleminded innocence, think ought to have prevented the sale. But Mr. Wood further states that the land would bring a good price. This appears to have been an all-power-ful argument with our needy Executive ; and they therefore, in defiance of further protests and deputations, disposed of the land by public sale; and strange, as predicted, the entire, block of 2500. acres of the choicest land in the. district — land inferior- to none in the province — falls into the hands of our speculators at a price not exceeding what the Government would have received in respect of the applications made by parties for agricultural leasing. We pity the Superintendent in the unenviable position in which he finds himself afteiv the land has been sold, and realises the fact that Mr. Wood's good price dwindles down, from an anticipated £10,000 to less, than £3,000-. We would particularly draw our readers' attention to a document attached to the correspondence, being a memo, to the Provincial Solicitor, asking hisopinion whether certain circum,-. stances connected with the sale of the Island Block would justify the Government in refusing to ratify the sale. We have no hesitation in. asserting that the circumstances set forth in their precious memo': are

mere fabrications of the Superintendent himself, as we are distinctly assured by creditable persons, who Sere present during the sale, that Inhere is not one truthful statement I in the memo. From a personal perusal of the correspondence, our readers will, like ourselves, have little trouble in satisfying themselves of the empty shallowness of the professions of Mr. Macandrew and his Executive in saying their policy is not to sell land on the Goldfields, but to promote settlement, &c. The unscrupulous manner in which they have worked, failed with the intending settlers, in order to serve their own special purpose, is too apparent. We are of opinion that the sale can scarcely be considered legal in the face of the fact that it was proclaimed open for agricultural leasing only, and such proclamation has not yet been cancelled. this is a ground upon which the question of legality cannot be decently raised by the Superintendent, seeing that he himself is a party to the illegal act. He is sincerely to be pitied in the unpleasant fix in which he finds himself, when, in order to endeavour to retrieve the Government, he has recourse to concocting such a fictitious document as the " Memo, to Provincial

Solicitor " already referred to.

It is well understood the keen anxiety evinced by our Mount Benger neighbours in endeavouring to relieve themselves from the kind fostering and judicious supervision of their late "Wardep, and their desire to secure a resident Warden in the district. We cannot credit Mr. Wot)d with being possessed of an over-excessive amount of good

$aste ,or iudgpient when he allows his spite to blind his sense of common decepcy, by furnishing a return of parties in occupation of land on the Island Block, in which he (unsolicited) describes the buildings occupied by two respectable residents as being " grog-shanties."