H.B. Land Board.

Hastings Standard, Volume XIII, Issue 4311, 15 November 1909, Page 5

H.B. Land Board.

♦*• MR E. LANE'S ALLEGATIONS

HE PETITIONS P \RLIAMENT

Mr Eustace Lane, as representative of the Crown tenants on the Hawke's Bav Land Board, is petitioning Parliament in the following tends :

1. That, Land Boards having no rules, the Chairman of the Hawke's Bay Land Board did at Gisborne on the Qth October, IQOQ, ignore the regulations and on his own personal responsibility cause petitioner, whilst quietly representing the interests of the Crown tenants, tc be assaulted and ejected from the meeting, although petitioner offered to submit to the ruling of the chair if endorsed by resolution of members present. 2. That oetitioner was illegally ejected and deprived of his seat on the board.

3. That, the bonrd then being constituted contrariiy to yo>u honourable enactment?, became, illegally constituted, and all business irregularly conducted and transacted, for the regulations state tlut all questions, shall be decided by a majority, and the unwilling absence of one member mu*t affect all decisions. That in the future as in the past it may be the duty of petitioner to t>oint out the loss and annoyance which may result to Crown tenants through incompetencies, irregularities, inconsistencies, illegalities, injustices and indecisions; but 5. Under existing conditions, your petitioner is deprived of his right, and to claim it by further attendance would be to court recurrence of violence and compulsion, for 6. The Chairman has stated publicly that, as Commissioner of Lands, he has to act on instructions apart from those of the Board, and some instructions are on record as ""Cabinet instructions" to the Board itself; and 7. The Chairman has stated publicly that, as Commissioner of Lands, he "may withhold correspondence from members of the Board. 8. Therefore your petitioner humbly showeth that a Board which has no rules, regulations, power to issue instructions, or investigate all details and correspondence, and the members' of which are subject to the dictation of the Chairman solely as to what they may say or refer to, has no constitution and is not the creation of your honourable House, but a bogus board, a farce and a waste of public money.

Q. And therefore your petitioner seeks Parliamentary investigation of the several matters referred to, as critically affecting the men he represents, and seeks from you that protection which you intended to bestow with the privilege and right you granted to Crown tenants of a seat on the real 'Land Board which you created, and not on the dummy board which your petitioner showeth to exist