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PETITIONS.

No. 2. PETITION OE SETTLEES WITHIN HITNDEEDS IN THE NORTHERN PORTION OE THE PROVINCE OE OTAGO. To the Members of the Honorable the House of Representatives in Session assembled, at Wellington, New Zealand, The Petition of the undersigned Settlers residing within Hundreds, Humbly Sheweth, — 1. That your petitioners, when they purchased land within hundreds, did so on the faith of the Waste Lands Act of Otago, 1866, being strictly adhered to, more particularly the clauses relative to the management of Crown lands within Hundreds. 2. That your petitioners, on the strength of this belief, have invested largely in improvements on their lands within Hundreds. 3. That one of the chief inducements held forth to your petitioners for settlement within Hundreds was the right of pasturage and powers of mangement within the same being vested in themselves by virtue of the before mentioned clauses of the Otago Waste Lands Act of 1866. 4. That your petitioners, through means of their Wardens legally appointed, exercised the said management, have allotted the pasturage, and levied the assessments in terms of said Act. 5. That your petitioners, by means of these assessments, defrayed all expenses of management, paid half the amount of the same to the District Local Road Boards, and have been able to carry out several works of considerable public utility within the various Hundreds. 6. That your petitioners have learnt, with surprise and indignation, that certain Resolutions have passed the Otago Provincial Council with a view to substitute the Superintendent and the Executive Council (for the time being) in lieu of the present local management, and further providing that the assessments, instead of being applied to local purposes as at present, should be paid into the Provincial Treasury and form part of the general revenue of the Province. 7. That your petitioners believe that the powers proposed to be given to the Superintendent and Executive Council over freehold property is an attempt at an illegal interference with the rights of the same, and that the delegation of the management of Hundreds to a constable will be felt as a most invidious and obnoxious measure. 8. That your petitioners desire to state that they have no wish to interfere with any Bills passed by the Provincial Council of Otago so long as they do not disturb and deteriorate their vested rights, -and had the proposed Amendment Act of the Waste Lands Act only sought to legislate for Hundreds hereafter to be proclaimed, they would not have deemed it necessary to appeal to your Honorable House on the subject. At the same time they cannot help thinking that continual alterations of Otago Land Acts are highly objectionable, and calculated to prevent either settlers or capitalists from risking their means by investing under such unstable laws. 9. That your petitioners trust that they have shown ample reasons for your Honorable House rejecting the Otago Amendment Act, 1869, of the Waste Lands Act; and they will ever pray. [Here follow eighty-one signatures.]

No. 3. PETITION OF W. P. GORDON, OE STRATH TAIERI RUN. To His Excellency Sir George Ferguson Bowen, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and St. George, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over Her Majesty's Colony of New Zealand and its Dependencies, and Vice-Admiral of the same, The humble Petition of William Pile Gordon, of Strath Taieri Bun, in the Province of Otago, Bunholder, Sheweth,— 1. That your petitioner arrived in Otago in the year 1865, and, in conjunction with his partner, Captain Shepherd, invested a large sum of money in the purchase from the Crown licensee of his interest in run number two hundred and thirteen B, in the said Province, with certain stock thereon. 2. That your petitioner and his said partner were, in a great measure, induced to make the said purchase by the very important consideration that the said run was situate (as it still is) within a proclaimed gold field, and that, according to the then existing laws relating to the gold fields, the holder of such a run was entitled to an absolute and unqualified right to full compensation in the event of the total or partial cancellation, by the Government, of the license for such run, and that the holder could, if so disposed, insist upon his license being so cancelled at any time during the currency of the said license. 3. That " The Gold Fields Act, 1866," although repealing the former Gold Fields Acts, re-enacted provisions entitling the holder of a run within a gold field to full compensation in the event of the cancellation of the license or lease of the runholder. 4. That the forty-eighth section of the said " Gold Fields Act, 1866," provides that it shall be lawful for the Governor, at any time subsequent to the proclamation of a gold field, to withdraw by proclamation therefrom any Crown lands which he may deem it necessary to withdraw, and that such lands shall thenceforth be dealt with under the ordinary law regulating the disposal of the Crown lands of the said Province. 5. That your petitioner submits that, by the said forty-eighth section, the Legislature never intended that the said power of withdrawing runs from gold fields should be exercised so as to deprive