CORRESPONDENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume III, Issue 112, 26 February 1853, Page 10

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times,

Sib,—There being rumours afloat that the Canterbury Association are about to sell the Town Reserves round Christchurch, the Colonists, one and all, look to you as their avowed advocate to defend them by your influence against so gross an infringement upon their rights, and so deliberate a breach of faith on the part of the Canterbury Association, should there be any truth in the report.

The Town of Christchurch was laid out in sections sufficient in number to satisfy all Claimants upon the Association in respect of their original purchases, with a considerable additional number of sections, which have all since been offered to the Public and sold. Around the Town, but notoriously as part of it, was at the same time set out a considerable belt of land called "Town Reserves," designed without doubt for the greater convenience and comfort of the Inhabitants, and for those purposes which at the present day are considered essential to " the health of Towns ;" and have generally attained in all new Settlements for the recreation and other requirements of the people in the formation of parks, public gardens, parade grounds, and other public purposes which time and circumstances will point out as the Settlement progresses, and as the municipal body in whom it will probably be vested, or the crown and public to whom it is at present reserved, shall determine.

The published scheme and plan of the Association in regard to the extent of the Town, and the allotment of sections within its boundary, have been notorious and unvaried from the outset of the Colony to the present moment; and the value of every section within it depends upon its being still maintained, all having been selected with special reference to the present limits of the Town, and the proximity of the public reserves—a guarantee that these lands would not and could not be built upon by individuals : no conversion, therefore, of these Town Keserves into lots for sale at the present day, could either be legally accomplished, or effected, without a grievous injury to every holder of sections within it.

For what purpose, may I ask, is it now proposed to be done ? Is it for the benefit or for the greater convenience of the inhabitants of the town, or the proprietors of lands within it? No; it is plain and evident that the object is not to benefit the Colonists, but to relieve the present responsible parties of the Association from their monetary liabilities. It may be very true that the expenditure of the Association, whether properly and legitimately made or not, has exceeded its assets by some thousands of Pounds, and that offices needless in the colony and elsewhere may have been created for the remuneration of individuals who have strenuously exerted themselves in forcing the scheme before the public, and so considerably have increased that expenditure; but these form no sufficient justification for now abolishing a main feature of their published project, and inflicting a serious injury upon any individual proprietor of lands in the town.

Could these Town Keserve be now, for one moment, treated as unappropriated lands, they would be immediately open to selection as unsold land, under the act of Parliament, and it would be competent, it should seem, for the Tancred section of purchasers coming out by the 25th ship, to select for themselves those lands which, until then, had been withheld from the purchasers who had arrived in the 24

previous ships; any attempt to justify which would be monstrous in the extreme.

The right, however, of the Association to deal with these Town Reserves after appropriation to public purposes has been so clearly and ably refuted iv the columns of your Paper of last week by the letter of Z. Y. X., that it is hardly necessary to reconsider the subject. Still there is one point of doubt in it to which I would direct your attention, and which at first sight might be taken to justify the Association in their suggested sale, provided they divide these Reserves into half-acre town sections for private purchase.

. It arises from the following1 quotation—"The Terms of Purchase state that the Capital shall contain, exclusive of reserves for streets "and public purposes, not less than 1000 acres for private purchase," to which your correspondent adds, " whereas Christchurcb, exclusive of the part marked ' Town Reserves,' the streets and squares,contain barely 300 acres. Now from this abstract remark it might be inferred that the Association, not having yet set out the 1000 acres in town sections, were still at liberty to do so, averring their object in the reserve to be solely for the extension of the lands for sale to individuals at a future time as ocoasion should require it. That occasion has certainly not yet arrived whilst not a hundredth part of the town site has yet been built upon. The important answer, however, seems plain ; that these reserves are either public rererves, or no reserves whatever, for the Association have not the power to make reserves of any kind but for public purposes—they are expressly forbidden to withhold any land from sale not reset ved expressly for public uses.

It was certainly never made known to the public that these reserves were afterwards to be cut up into town lots for sale. Doubtless the Association originally had it iv their discretion to cut up the entire 1000 acres which they might set out for the town, into town lots for sale, or to set it but for other public purposes ; and they have accordingly executed that discretion in a manner which must be acknowledged by all to be far more satisfactory, by the appropriation of a large portion of that land to public purposes for the convenience, comfort, and recreation of the inhabitants, in a way which precludes its being built upon, and it is not now competent to them to revise that scheme and to abolish the rights of the public which they have thus created ; at least so I conceive. If they were originally bound, and have erred in their scheme in not setting out a full 1000 acres for actual sale, it.is simply a blunder which is now past correction by any but the public ; and the purchasers of sections under their scheme as promulgated are not now to be made the sufferers by such blunder, nor to be hemmed in by thousands of quarter acre sections, which by such'sales would now be thrown into the market, and render their past investments unprofitable, and their selections against these reserves nugatory.

The evil, if evil it be, is now past amendment. The Town Reserves are now bond fide appropriated to public uses; and the plan of the town, as published by the Association, whether for good or ill, must doubtless now remain until the inhabitants and the public for whose use the reserves were made, or the Crown in whom they are now vested by such reservation in trust for the public, and not the Association,- —shall determine otherwise to appropriate them. And bold will be the Association to take the responsibility of such sales if made, or the man, who shall purchase and build upon any part of these reserves and brave the issue of the many indictments that may be brought against him for encroachment on the public property,— liable also to be removed by any one, who, for amusement, caprice, or example's sake, may think proper to take upon himself the task. At Wellington and other Settlements similar town reserves have been made with great advantage to the Settlement, and at Wellington it seems an attempt was made by the New Zealand Company to dispose of these reserves; but such, attempt was very properly and very promptly not only resisted but scouted by the people, and it is sincerely to be hoped that any such effort in this settlement will meet with a similar fate, and that the future beauty and advantages of our principal town be not sacrificed to the errors or necessities of a miscalcu-f lating distant Board, I am, Sir, your's obediently, r Zeno. ■]■

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times,

Sin, —Many disinterested persons considered that you might have acted with more discretion, had you been sufficiently cautious in receiving, as authentic, and giving publicity to what.was.furnished for the Lyttelton Times, by your special Reporter, as to what was said by him to have taken place on.various occasions at Akaroa.

I shall make no other remark upon what, in ignorance of facts, you have been pleased to say regarding the " irresponsible Individual who has placed the Akaroa district in a state of almost inextricable confusion," than that the inhabitants in general of Banks' Peninsula have formed a very different opinion of him, as well as of what he has effected.

But, I feel certain that the errors in my Letter, addressed to the Electors of the Canterbury Province, —which no doubt have, arisen in inattention on the part'of your printer—need only to be pointed out to you, in order to their being readily rectified. . I therefore request your attention to the second paragraph of my letter ; in which I am made to say—" a most full and necessary measure of Local Self-Government, &c." Being satisfied it will take some time before most of us can become habituated to public business, or the resources of the Province can be sufficiently developed,—l therefore wrote distinctly, a more full only; implying a gradual extension of the powers intrusted to us in the management of our own local affairs. Again, in the fifth paragraph, I find this— "and also to my being convinced that the Committee of Management (or rather Lord Lyttelton, in whom the whole power and influence of the Association centred) could not, in any respect, fulfil the engagement to which they had entered into with the colonists, &c." Upon this I shall only observe that I may be mistaken; but, I believe I wrote —and in this I am borne out by the copy now before me—as follows : — ",and also to my being convinced that the Committee of Management (or rather Lord Lyttelton, in whom the whole power and influence of the Association centred) could not, in any respect, fulfil the engagements into which they had entered with the Colonists." This, at all events, must, obviously, have been what I intended to have written ; "for, the engagements I had in view, were those set forth in " The Canterbury Papers ;" to which it might be well to refer the Colonists; who could then fully understand in what respects they have been fulfilled, or are ever likely, upon • " the general principles on which the Canterbury Settlement was founded," to be so. It is not to the purr pose, your telling Canterbury Colonists that these engagements have been fulfilled in as far as the means at the disposal of the Committee of Management and Mr. Godley would admir of. This is by no means a sufficient reason for the non-fulfilment of such important contracts. But, it is high time that the Inhabitants of the great and important Province, which has been designated as that of Canterbury, should give their undivided attention to what so intimately concerns themselves. Let them, at least for some time to come, discard unprofitable colonial politics ; as likewise the preachers of those unsound political and colonising doctrines with which they are, surely, by this time nauseated. And, as the only true means of living in peace, happiness, and English comfort in their adopted country, let them energetically devote themselves to the management of their own local or domestic affairs. But, whatever may be the situation or situations I hold in the Province, nothing shall be wanting on my part until I can see the Waste Lands so much reduced in price, and made easy in acquirement, throughout the Province, that even the working-man can call what extent of them'he considers necessary for his purposes his- own. In the mean time, I shall resume my former passive position; and await the result of the votes of the Independent Electors in general of the Canterbury Province. Your inserting the above in the Lyttelton Times will oblige,

Sir, Your very obedient servant, James Campbell. Commissioner of Crown Lands, &c, &c, Akaroa-, February 14, 1853. •

[On referring to the manuscript of Colonel Campbell's Address, we find that the two errors he points out were inadvertently made, which, of course, we arc but too happy to rectify.]

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times,

Sib, —Seeing by your Paper, of Saturday last tbat Mr. Hay considers your admission of my letter in your columns as derogatory to the character of a public Journalist, I am at a loss to know why Mr. Hay should dread the scrutiny of the press, if couvinced of his own integrity in the affair. My statement in no way interfered with the concerns of private life, but was a mere repetition of facts that occurred at a public Court and public sale; and Mr. Hay should first prove that I have made a false or partial statement before; he has any reason to complain of my giving it publicity. All 1 know is, my property was purchased by persons in his employ, in his presence ; and I feel convinced the law that gave my effects at a nominal value, sold my house, and locked me out of it without an hour's notice, was, to say the least, harshly enforced against me ; therefore 1 felt justified in exposing the affair, and^so in appealing to his Honor the Judge, who,! trust, for the sake of justice, will fully investigate the affair.

I remain, Sir, yours respectfully, W. Partridge,

Pigeon Bay, Feb. 23rd