APAGE FROM THE EARLY HISTORY OF AHURIRI.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 1, Issue 14, 26 December 1857, Page 5

APAGE FROM THE EARLY HISTORY OF AHURIRI.

We take the following from the "Wellington Spectator" of May 29, 1852, which has been kindly placed at our disposal.

The following petition to the House of Commons from the Settlers at Ahuriri, against the late Act of Parliament, and in j favour of Sir George Grey's Pastoral Regulations, praying also that that district may he exempted from the operation of any laws or regulations having reference to the settlement of the New Zealand Company's affairs, was received in Wellington too late to be forwarded by the Midlothian. The petition was unanimously adopted by the settlers in that rising district, and we have great pleasure in publishing it, as adding to the strength of the protests already recorded against the Act of Parliament, and as affording additional proof of the strong feeling which prevails through all parts of the Southern Province in favour of the adjustment of the land question, as proposed by the Legislative Council, and of his Excellency's liberal Pastoral Regulations : — To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, the humble Petition of the undersigned Inhabitants of the settlement of Ahuriri, in the district of Hawke's Bay, in the colony of New Zealand, Sheweth, That in consequence of an Ordinance passed in the sittings of the Legislative Council held at Wellington, in July 1851, termed an Ordinance for the issue of Depasturing Licenses outside the boundaries of Proclaimed Hundreds, your petitioners were induced by the protection and encouragement therein afforded them to settle upon land lately purchased by the Colonial Government from the natives, under leases of 14 years, subject to certain conditions of a reasonable nature, in case the land, or the buildings erected thereon, should at any time during such leases be required by the Government.' And your petitioners have further proceeded to lay out and embark considerable capital in stock, which is now placed upon the lands in this district, and has only been done at great expense and risk, arising from the nature of the country to be passed through being wholly new and previously unoccupied, devoid of roads, and in many parts of a broken and mountainous character, and in others intersected by deep and dangerous rivers- ; but these obstacles have at length been overcome after much loss of time and labour, and instructions for the importation of further stock have been sent to the colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. That in the midst of such exertions, your

petitioners have heard with dismay and alarm that all protection for their present and future labours has been entirely withdrawn from them, and the Ordinance of the Legislative Council above-named been rendered null and void by an act passed by your honourable House, dated the 7th August, 1851, by which the lands at present occupied are to be held on yearly leases only, and no compenset ; on whatever is to be allowed for any capital laii out and expended in homesteads and other buildings absolutely required, all of which absorb and require the expenditure of large sums of money. That it is therefore with sincere regret your petitioners beg most respectfully to solicit the attention of your honourable House to their present condition, which if not remedied, will render it necessary for them to abandon their operations, as their interests and prospects are thus completely destroyed by the insecurity and uncertainty in which they are placed. Your petitioners also beg to state that the land they have entered upon was never possessed, or held or claimed, in any manner whatever by the New Zealand Company, but that it is part of aland purchase niade of the natives by his Excellency the Governor-in-Chief, situated two hundred miles distant from Wellington, of considerable extent, and entirely without the jurisdiction or territory of the aforesaid Company. Under these circumstances, your petitioners earnestly pray that your Honourable House will be pleased to permit the Ordinance of the Legislative Council relating to Pastoral Regulations to be carried out, to exempt the district in which your petitioners have settled from any question connected with the affairs of the New Zealand Company, or any laws your Honourable House may please to pass having reference to them ; so that the prosperity and progress of this part of the colony of New Zealand may not be checked or impeded, and the operations of the colonists be destroyed and abandoned, as they inevitably must be, if security for property and labour is thus withdrawn, and risk and uncertainty be added to the other difficulties, numerous as they are, which your Petitioners have now to suffer and to overcome. Your Petitioners entreat your Honourable House to relieve this new and distant yet importaL> district, never in the possesion of the New Zealand Company, from any laws, or regulations, passed by the Company for the settlement of their affairs. And your Petitioners will ever pray, &c. Signed— E. S. Curling, Alfred Chapman, F. Chapman, George Rich, Alex. Alexander, D. Gollan, J. W. Harris, W. Villiers, J. B. M'Kain, F. S. Abbott, John Davis Canning, C.H.L. Pelichet, C. Canning.