WELLINGTON LAND BOARD.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4352, 23 February 1893, Page 2

WELLINGTON LAND BOARD.

Deferred Payment Thirds.

A special meeting of the Land - Board was held yesterday morning to „ consider the allocation of thirds, there . being present—The Commissioner (Mr J, H. Baker), in the chair, 8( Messrs W. A, Fiizherbert, T. VJ. J Fisher, F. Pirani, aud A, W. Hogg, M.E.R. Before proceeding with the business J of the meeting, Mr 13akfr said he J 1 wished to place mi record Ids most '' emphatic denial that, the Lands Departnient had m any way delayed the " ]iayments of thirds due to the Pahia- v tua County Council, or that the amounts due had not been paid over j owing to the settlers not replying to the circular addressed to them, asking which land their roads opened up, or that repeated promises of pay- ° raent hod been made to the Pahiatuß County Council, but had not been ? fulfilled. The facts, as stated in the 1: Evening Post of the 10th of February " last, were that on tho 10th of Novem- j her last he forwarded complete schedules and plans showing the roads to the County Council, asking them to 6 show tho roads on which it was pro- ■ posed to expend the accrued thirds * payable to the local body, as piovidcd by clause 126 of the Land Act, 1872, J On the 13th of January, no proposals ' having being received from the Puhia- ' tua County Council, he again wrote, ' telling them he wanted to try to get j all the payments made by the Ist of February, and to send iu their pro- ' posals at once, Tliey were not re- j ceived until the 20th January, and ! then the plans which had been made ' specially to show on what roads the ' \ thirds were to be expended were not '

returned, and the proposal could not be checked. After again telegraphing | for them, they were finally received i on Monday, the 6th of February, As , there were over 1000 proposals to i be checked, the Board would see I it was aimply impossible to got ' them ready for the Inst meeting. 1 It was the delay caused by the Pahiatua County Council officers in sending iu the proposals, and not any 1 caused by the Land Department, 3 which had prevented the money due . to them being paid over. The cheques b for the amounts to eight other bodies J who had sent in their proposals as B required, were all signed on the Bth ! of this month, am) forwarded in duo course. Clause 12G threw on the j Board the onus of seeing that the exe penditure was for the benefit of Belect tors from whose land the money was e derived, and Clause 132 made the 0 local body responsible that it was so 6 spent. Under the previous Act, the '' proposal as sent in by most bodies 0 was so imperfect that, it was nearly e impossible to subsequently trace on o what roads the Board had sanctioned it expenditure, and time after time sets ■* tiers wrote that though the oxpendi- " ture of their thirds on roads leading to j their homesteads had been sanctioned lt and the money handed to the local j, body yet the roads wero not made, i? Mr Piraui said he was surprised at & the Commissioner Inking any notice lf ' of what the Evening Post said. Mt Hogg believed that notwithstanding the denial made, the state menis objected to were accurate. For the last twelve months the Pahiatua County Council, the Eketahuna and Mauriceville Road Boards, and other local tiodies in this district, had been vainly endeavounntj to get thirds which had been acoruing. When he saw Mr Baker about it last session, that gentleman attributed this to the fact that the Land Office accounts had been so badly kept that they were in a | terrible state of muddle, and nothing could be made out of them. That (lid not accord with his present statement that all the fault lav with the Pahiatua Council,. Mr Baker contonded that the delay had been caused by the dilatorinesa of the local bodies in sending in their proposals. Mr'Hogg said he was not defend* ing any statements which had been published, foras to what had happened since November last he could not

speak, but be could say tbat prior to Hint and during the last session be was in receipt of continual appeals from local bodies with reference to the thirds which were accruing, and which, though badly needing roads, thoy could not obtain.

Mr Baker raid tbat under the old

Bystem it was impossible to trace the roads upon which tho thirds were expended, and so delay occurred, Mr Hogg aaid it was not right to condemn the local bodies unheard, when it was admitted tbat the accounts had been allowed to drift into a terrible state of confusion, Mr Baker said it was a fact nevertheless, The Department had been

taxed with not allowing the payments to be made, and he had simply shown that it was impossible to pay them, Mr Pirani thought former laxity on the part of ibo Land Office was no excuse for tho neglect of thePahiatua Council now. Mr Hogg said it was only quite lately tbat the circulars with reference to the expenditure of the money had beon sent out. Money hod been held for a year by the Government on various excuses, notwithstanding the efforts of the local bodies to obtain it,

Mr Balior said if tho local bodies did not send in proposals as required by the Act tho Board could do nothing. Mr Hogg reiterated that the fault lay with the unsatisfactory manner in which the accounts bad been kept in tho Land Office, Mr Baker retorted that ho flatly contradicted that, Mr Pirani said that to his know* ledge the Commissioner bad been to extraordinary pains in the Manawatu to find out how the thirds were to be spent, and in two cases it was found that they were spent on roads right away from the lands from which they were derived, Mr Fisher said the local bodies in his district bad got their money on the 81st March last, At the request of Mr Hogg, Mr Moore, Clerk to tho Pahiatua County Council, who was in attendance stated that the Council must take some 'sharein the responsibility for not having the proposals ready since November last, The first letter to him said the proposals were to be sent in by the first week in January, but this was overlooked and they were not sent till the third week. What the Council complained of was tho old thirds which had been held back so long that they had received none sinco Ist October twelve months. They rooeived no proposals from tbo Land Office between October, 1891, and November last-over a year, Mr Baker said one-half the proposals sent in lapsed, owing to the impossibility of checking them in the state of the hooks, It v/as impossible from the old books to make bead or tail'of'hem, Mr Pirani said tho fault Bince November had been with the local bodies,

\ Mr Baker enid the Evening Post had blamed the Department for not having paid these thirds in time to allow of the mads being made this summer, and it was this that he desired to refute, Mr Moore said that in the Pahiatua Council ledger the thirds were always allocated to certain roads, and special accounts kept for onoh r<ad, soflttt it was easy to trace what had bewnie of them, Mr Baker admitted that the Pahiatin Council's books wuru properly kept, and the proposals alw«VB came i'iom it in a ;iro|ier way. hubocase of some lo al l>odi«a it whs otherwise and it was impossible to do anything villi theii proposals, The Boaid then went into the ques tiou of conridering the allocation of tbiids. [The statements referred to by Mr Baker as having appeared in our columns were based on a letter addressed to him a few days before by a' well-known who, in forwarding a copious, asked our aid to bring about the object desired. Mr Baker does not appear to have brought this letter under the notice of the Board, nor informed it what answer ho had'sent to the settler in question, who amongst other things said—"lt is very hard on Bottlers that a third of their rents Bhould remain so long idle in your office, . . Sir, the settlers have dono their part , of the work, and trust that yon will now do yours, and give them such ; relief as will enablo them to get a 1 better road to their homes than they . now have. That summer is nearly over cannot be denied, and by the [ time the money is sent by you, tenders culled for "the work, h,dJtfA , summer will be ovor,"] -IpBHCP