DUNEDIN.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 11, 17 September 1874, Page 3

DUNEDIN.

(From our own Correspondent.)

? The proceedings of our Waste Lands j Board are now attracting a considerable s amount of attention. A charge of . rather a serious nature, the substance of r which I telegraphed to you last week, 1 was intentionally made by Mr Harris | against the Chief Commissioner or ; some other pjflcer of the Board at the \ last sitting;- This was nothing less I than broadly hinting that a. recorded ( minute of the Board had been tampered ; with for the purpose of defeating an ■ application which had been made for ! the purchase of land. At the second ' meeting, prior to the one to which 1 am now referring, an application was made . hy Messrs. M'Donald and Matheson for land known as the Tuapeka Basin, ; and granted by the Board. Before the next meeting, however, the Chief Commissioner was informed by Mr. Nicholson, a gentleman in the Survey Department, that the land had been reserved, • and was likely to be of great prospective value. IJe then, on his own responsibility, refused the application pro forma, so that it might again come before the Board. This it did. Mr. Harris then, I believe, for the first time, appeared on the scene on behalf of the applicants to as- why the Chief Commissioner had taken upon himself to refuse to receive payment on an application which had been granted by the Board. He urged that, as there had been no application for a rehearing at the instance of any person, the Boai-d was bound to adhere to its former decision. Messrs. Strode and Butterworth agreed with Mr. Harris that the Board could not ratify the action taken by the Chief Commissioner. JVI r. Clark and the Chief Commissioner, however, thought otherwise, and the latter having the casting vote, he,, as a matter of course, gave* it in favor of this view of the matter, and the application was refused. Mr. Harris' expressed himself as being confident that the decision of the Board was illegal, and intimated that if his clients would be guided by his advice the matter would not be permitted • to rest in the position in which it then was. At the next meeting of the Board, Mr. Harris was again present for the purpose of -.asking the Board to state a specif case for the opinion of the Supreme Court, for the minutes being read over, he objected to their confirmation^ on the ground that the minute recorded opposite the application which he made at the former meeting- stated that Mr, Nicholson had applied for a rehearing. This he contended to be an untruth, as no person named Nicholson" or any one else appeared before the Board asking for a rehearing. He said that, if the members of the Board would examine the minute, he believed ih^y would have to come to the conclusion that that portion of it referring to Mr. Nicholson haviner asked for a rehearing was an interlineation. He admitted that had a rehearing been applied fop, the case of his clients would be weakened, and said that it appeared to him as if the interlineation had been made for the purpose of defeating rhe claim of his clients. A long discussion followed, and the Chief Commissioner again, by | his casting vole, confirmed the m.mute J It is no doubt commendable for the Board to protect the interests of the public by preventing land that is likely to be ultimately of special value from passing 1 into the hands of private individuals for a mere nominal sum ; but it is utterly absurd for it to attempt where the law is clearly stated to resist the application, and thereby put the country to the expense of costly lawsuits,' The : land agents in Dunedin have the Waste Land Act so completely at their fingers' end that their services are always employed by parties who ' think they see a good chance of taking advantage of some defect in . the Act. ' It is absolutely necessary that we i | should have the present Act amended I in those points where it is bound to work in favor of individuals and to the loss and injury of the Province, and it would be well at the same time if a ' ! responsible Board were established in tbe place of the present one, which appears to be able to do pretty much as : it listeth. i During the last fortnight a couple of thousand more immigrants have been < landed on our shores. As miyht be expected, they are not meeting with ■ engagements very rapidly. The bar- i racks at Caversham and in Princes-i < street were only capable of accom- < modating those who oame by the Otago i i and Corona : consequently, the immi- ' grants by the Parsee and Tweed are 1 still retained on board those vessels at ' Port Chalmers. Previous to the arrival < of these four ships, there were still a i considerable number of new hands ( either out of employment or else work- « ing for the , Government at Logan's Point, or somewhere else, at wages ] ranging from 3s. to 6s. a day. For ' myself, I think the present indiscrimin- \ ate system of immigration is attended, 1 and will continue to be attended, with results to this Province, if not to the 1 Colony generally, which, taken in con- i junction with its cost, will go a long 1 way toward counterbalancing all the i good that will flow from it. This i would not be the case if those who are 1 daily arriving in our midst were of a 1 class likely to make good, energetic \ colonists 5 but it must be painfully -i apparent to the most partial observer ' .< that such is not the case. Whether i regarded in a physical or moral light; i

they are not what they should be, and are, as a class, very different from those who used to come put under the Provincial system. Of course* I d° n s?t mean to. say hut that very, many of them are able-bodied, honest, and industrious, but X do say it must excite astonishment how any person possessing the smallest power of discrimiha-; tion could ever have thought of granting [free passages to a- .very considerable number of those who have landed at Port Chalmers during .the last six months. Any person whose calling may render it necessary for him to pass through the streets of Punedin aftereight or nine o'clock at night at the present time, and knowing what Dunedin was prior to the introduction of our Immigration Schenie, must be led irresistably to the can.olusj.pn that whatr ever else that scheme may have done, it has not tended to raise the moral status of Dunedin : but this is but a natural consequence of the introduction of an immoderately largo number of persons drawn indiscriminately from the lowest classes of society in the cities and towns of the British Empire. I notice that the Christian M-Ausland, with its full number of new chums, may also be expected shortly*.