The Superintendent of Otago and the Colonial Secretary.

Bruce Herald, Volume IX, Issue 804, 19 May 1876, Page 7

The Superintendent of Otago and the Colonial Secretary.

The following letter was forwarded by Mr James Macandrew to Dr Pollen : — Province of Otago, New Zealand. Superintendent's Office, Dunedin, 4th May, 1876. Srn, — Referring to your teleeram in reply to mine requesting you officially to contradict tbe rumor current here that the Colonial Government had intimated its desire that the Waste Lands Board should refuse to grant certain applications for land recently proclaimed by the Provincial Government under the delegated powers open for sale afc 20s an acre, I much regret that, while you neither deny nor admit the rumor alluded to, you express your approval of the action of the Waste Lands Board in declining to grant the applications, aud, as a necessary inference, your approval of the serioua consequences which tbat action involves. Tliose consequences are concisely set forth in a mecuorcuidutn addressed, tiy me ti the Waste Lands Board, a copy of which ia forwarded herewith, as also the Chief Surveyor's report as to the quality of the land referred to. I need scarcely say that the result of tho Board's action will bave a most injurious effect upon the labor mirkefc during the ensuing winter, it indeed ifc does not throw thousands of men out of employment. The Provincial Executive, chvrged qs it is with the peace, order, and good government of this portion of fche Colouy, has a right to expect the fupport of th<-> Colonial Government. All it i s t 't cannot but feel that it is not only receiving scant; aid from. but that ifc is being thwarted by the Colonial Kxecvir live. "iou say that the "plan by which the application was confined to tha leaseholders was one whk-h must be disapproved by any parson who believes tbat the law should be administered in acgordange wiih its spirit and intention, as well as *yifch its IcfcterA As to this. I cau only say that tho -" plan '' was precisely the same, ys:>li(' r tfi!i rt literatim, as has been adopted in similar pases foi* years past ; indeed, if I mistake nofc, it w*s first adopted when the present Premier was afc the head of the Provincial Executive. I refer you to no less than eighteen proclamations, as per WJrgin, ( n proof of this assertion, from which jt wili be perceived that the power of application \s not conftned tp \\\e leaseholder. I may say further, that there is good reason to believe thafc the applicant? in question would havo preferred that the land should have been put up to auction under section 150 Otago W.isfca Lands Act, in which case there can be lifctle doubt but they would have become the purchaae r s at ten shillings an acre. — I have, &c, J. Maoasdrew, (Superintendent of Ote^o,