ORDERED TO BE PRINTED AUGUST 14th, 1855.

Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives, 1855 Session I

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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

ORDERED TO BE PRINTED AUGUST 14th, 1855.

To the Honorable the House of Representatives of New Zealand, in Session assembled. The Petition of the Provincial Council of the Province or New Plymouth, Sheweth— That by the division of the surplus Revenue of the Colony amongst the different Provinces as at present provided for in the sixty-third clause of the Constitution Act, this Province, from its peculiar circumstances, is deprived of an equitable share of that Revenue. That at the formation of the New Plymouth Settlement there were but forty Natives in the district, until the manumission of their slaves by the Waikatos, shortly after, increased this number to about three hundred. That the purchase of extensive tracts of country from the Ngatiawa tribe, in the neighbouring Provinces of Wellington and Nelson, while benefitting them in affording the means of increasing their land sales, has proportionably injured this Province, since the number of Natives here has been increased to about one thousand five hundred, by the influx of those who, having disposed of their land in those Provinces, are compelled to cling to that which they claim here. That thus this Province labours not only under the general disadvantages which result from a deficient supply of land, but, for the reasons stated, under the special disadvantage that the very causes which have enabled the Provinces of Wellington and Nelson greatly to increase their gross Revenues, have, in the same ratio, debarred this Province from increasing its gross Revenue by Land Sales, and it is consequently mainly dependent on its Customs Revenue for the amount whereby to calculate its share of that portion of the General Revenue which is unappropriated by the General Assembly. Your Petitioners therefore pray that your Honorable House, in voting the Estimates, will take into consideration the financial disadvantages under whieh this Province labours as a direct result of the benefits conferred on other Provinces by the purchase of lands from the Natives who, having sold their land elsewhere, are compelled to return here. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, &c. On behalf of the Provincial Council, J. NEWTON WATT, Speaker. New Plymouth, New Zealand, April 2Gth, 1855.