KAURI GUM INDUSTRY ACT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 10, 13 January 1899, Page 5

KAURI GUM INDUSTRY ACT.

WAITEMATA COUNCIL REFUSE TO BRING THE ACT INTO OPERATION.

At the meeting of the WaitemataCounty Council to-day correspondence from the Department of Labour at Wellington was submitted in reference to the Kauri Gum Industry Act, IS9B. The Department forwarded copies of the regulations and. license and-application-' forms. The Department also, asked, for the names and- addresses of rangers appointed by the Council under the Act,' and further forwarded names of Austrians recently landed, not yet three months in the colonj', and who arrived in the colony-on the 21st November and December sth. A copy of the Orcler-iii-Oouncil emppwering local bodies to issue kauri gum licenses was also forwarded, and also a list of crown lands in the county set apart as gum reserves. A general discussion followed, it being pointed out that the land in. the county referred to as gum reserves had been, exhausted,- and that nearly all the gum now got in the county was obtained from private lands, which the Act did not interfere with.

Mr Newman stated there were not more than half-a-dozen Austrians in the gum-digging district", of the county, and they had been residents there for some years.

On the motion of Mr O'Neil, seconded by Mr Sinclair, it was agreed to take, no action to bring the Kauri Gum Industry Act into operation in the Waitemata County.

The chairman subseqeuntly intimated his intention, to move that the Government be requested to hand over to the Council as public reserves the remaining Crown lands unsold in the county. . ..,_, ..