o.^-tto. 1.

35

PAPERS RELATIVE TO THE

Firstly : "Whether certain officials in the employ of Government, who were amongst the purchasers of the land in question, made any improper use of information given them by their position, so as to obtain any undue advantage over the rest of the public ? and Secondly: Did the Waste Lands Board exercise all the promptitude desirable in the withdrawal of the district containing these lands from sale, under the Waste Lands Act ? With respect to the first question, we have examined every single official, without one exception, whose name occurs on the list of purchasers. They were examined, cross-examined, and recalled for reexamination, until every question which the sagacity or ingenuity of those whom I may call the counsel on both sides of the question could devise, to elicit the fullest statement of all that took place, had been put and replied to. And I must say that it appears to me to have been made abundantly evident —both that no individual in the Government employ obtained, by any undue means whatsoever, any particle of information upon which he acted in putting in his application or making his purchase, and that the information he did obtain was got from a source to which all the public had equal access, and entirely, outside the Government offices. This was proved by the evidence given in the most direct, straightforward, candid, and consistent manner by the officers themselves, and by the avowal of Mr. Culliford, the miner, that he himself had authorized Mr. Everett to make the information as to the discovery of the position of the reef ag public as he pleased, he (Culliford) having secured his own position by the purchase of the first pie<?e of land sold. It was proved that this information was given in the public room of an hotel the evening before the purchases were made. With respect to a special piece of information, which was the subject of much discussion, viz., as to the locality of a second spot, where the reef, I presume, reappeared—at all events, a spot a little distance from the first series of sections applied for —it was clearly shown by Mr. Brunner (who himself, moreover, was not subject to any real or supposed obligation to act in a different manner from that admissible in any other individual of the community, as not being a Government official in the ordinary sense), that Culliford himself gave and dictated the very words of the description which left a gap between the lands previously applied for and that now specially alluded to. It was shown too, with respect to Mr. Sharp's application to purchase (which I more particularly allude to because he is the Government officer in the most important and responsible position of any concerned), that the application was put in by another official without his knowledge, that he expressed disapproval of the proceeding, applied at the Land Office 1o have his name struck out of the application, and was told that it was contrary to the rules and could not be done, or in words to that effect. Ido not think anything more can be required from a gentleman iri his position than that ; and his sincerity need not be doubted, when his assertion, which was not disputed, is considered that he knew of the reef the evening before the sale, i.e., on the evening when the news was divulged at Everett's hotel, and abstained from taking advantage of his knowledge as he easily might have done without suspicion, by causing any other person, not connected with the Government, to put an application in his name. Government officials, it must be admitted, have the same right as the rest of the public to purchase 3and, provided they take no advantage from their position which the others are deprived of; and 1 do not see that they have laid themselves open to animadversion on the present occasion, except —which is more a matter between themselves and the Government of the Colony than between themselves and the public —in so far as it would decidedly be considered inconsistent with the duty of an official to the Government that employed him, to take any steps that might tend to embarrass the Government, or throw difficulties in the way of its administration of public affairs. In the present case, it has not been shown that they could have anticipated or could have foreseen this ; and it would doubtless appear to them —if they considered the point at all —that, setting aside mere prejudice against themselves as officials, such embarassmeut would be equally caused whether they themselves were or were not among a number of individuals whom the law allowed to interpose between the mass of the public and the ■opportunity commonly supposed to bo given by that law to the latter, of acquiring certain beneficial interests in lands of an auriferous character. Secondly, with respect to the degree of promptitude exercised by the Waste Lands Board in withdrawing the land from sale, I think it cannot be denied that it would have been quite possible for the Board to have so withdrawn it before the morning on which the sale took place. Indeed, both the Commissioner of Crown Lands and His Honor the Superintendent allowed that could they have foreseen the rush and the excitement that actually took place, they would have taken care Ihe meeting of the Board should have been held the day before. It was quite physically possible, I say, to have held the meeting in time for this. The inquiry has, I think, elicited the facts in explanation, or I may say in excuse, or at least in palliation of their apparent negligence in this respect, that on the 11th and 12th of October, the Provincial Secretary, Mr. Greenfield, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Mr. Daniel], considered that they had no such knowledge of the existence, and none at all of the locality, of the reef Culliford said he had discovered, as would have justified them in requesting the Superintendent to call the Waste Lands Board together ; that, on the 13th, when Culliford first made distinctly known where the reef was by putting in his application, the Commissioner was chiefly occupied with the idea of giving him protection in his discovery, and was indeed beating about the provisions of the Waste Lands Act to find how to do so; and that, lastly, he was misled by Culliford's apparent-anxiety to keep the matter secret into the belief that ho would not divulge it; and consequently, as he could trust himself and the Receiver of Land Revenue to do the same, no urgent necessity existed for securing the attendance of Mr. Barnicoat and the other members of the Waste Lands Board in town that evening. There is no doubt that this is very much to be regretted; still I cannot but consider that the inquiry made it unmistakeably apparent that if the Commissioner was in error herein, it was entirely an error of judgment, and not of motive or intention —an error very naturally fallen into, and not deserving of any very severe reprehension. Indeed I must say it appeared to myself that the Commissioner was led into the course he took rather by too conscientious a desire to do his duty, and a very proper anxiety to secure to a miner, whose discovery had put him in the position of a benefactor of the public, what he (the Commissioner) thought was equitably due 1o him, than by any other motive whatever. And lam happy to state here in public, both of that gentleman