THE LAND BOARD.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XXI, Issue 1107, 21 February 1891, Page 3

THE LAND BOARD.

(BY OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.)

Dunedix, Feb. 19. At the Land Board an application by Mr. W. D. Smith (for J: O'Neill) for a grazing right overf the forest reserve taken from sections 7 and S, block xiv., Mauioloto, on the usual conditions, was referred to the Chief Commissioner to arrange. The Naseby town clerk wrote, complaining that G. Bottins* had erected a building above the bridge in Roache's Gully on a miuing reserve.—Referred to the Chief Commissioner. Ranger Hughan, reporting on the application of Mr. W. H. Ash (for J. J. Ramsay) for a license to occupy section 7, block vx., Rock and Pillar reserve, stated he saw oo objection to the license being granted. Mr. W. C. Martin and the Hyde Progress Com-nittee lodged objections that the land was auriferous and the only place for obtaining lignite.—License to issue for one year under the Reserve Act, ISSl.forpastoral purposes, at a yearly license fee of £4 10s., subject to there being no interruption to mining operations in the section either for gold or coal; also a right of way through the section to be reserved for the use of the licensee of run 205 d for the purpose of driving sheep. A circular letter issued from the Lands Office impressing upon the Commissioners of Crown Lands,-by -direction of the Minister," the necessity of using every means in their power to prevent evasions of the Land Act by the making of fatse declarations and by the practice of dutrnnyism, was read. It appeared to the Minister, the circular stated, that this had not been done in the past, as he found that information reading dummyism was first reported by. persons outside the department, a state of things which he thought should not obtain.— Opinion was expressed by members of the board that the Land Act was at fault in not entrusting boards with larger discretion in dealing with applications laid before them.