PETITIONS.

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G.

the runholder of his right to compensation for the cancellation of his lease under the said Gold Fields Act, because, in the first place, such a construction would impute an unjust and evasive spirit to the section in question, instead of the very different and more equitable interpretation of which the words of the section are capable; and because, in the second place, it is expressly provided in the one hundred and thirteenth section of the said Act that no then existing right, title, interest, obligation, or penalty, should be affected by the said Act, so that the said absolute and unqualified right to compensation, so vested as aforesaid, was saved by the said " Gold Fields Act, 1866." 6. That, upon the passing of " The Otago Waste Lands Act, 1866," your petitioner applied to the Waste Lands Board for a pastoral lease of the said run, in terms of the sixty-ninth section of that Act. 7. That the Provincial Government of Otago thereupon made it a condition of the granting of such application that your petitioner and his said partner should enter into a covenant to allow the Provincial Government to select ten thousand acres of the said run for sale or agricultural leasing without giving any compensation to your petitioner and his said partner. 8. That your petitioner and his said partner submitted to the said condition, surrendered their depasturing license, and accepted a pastoral lease of the said run, relying upon the good faith of the Provincial Government, which, as above clearly appears, was pledged to your petitioner and his partner, that, save as to the said ten thousand acres, they would not be dispossessed of any part of the said run without receiving from the Government the full compensation which, in that event, they were intended to receive under the said Gold Fields Act. 9. That, relying as aforesaid on the good faith of the said Provincial Government, your petitioner, since the issue of the said pastoral lease, has paid increased assessment under the same to the amount of nine hundred and seventy pounds nine shillings and ten pence in two years, and has laid out large sums of money in fencing and other improvements upon the said run. 10. That, still relying upon the good faith of the Provincial Government, your petitioner recently purchased the share of his said partner in the said run and stock for the sum of six thousand five hundred pounds. 11. That, on the 4th day of June, 1869, the Provincial Council of Otago passed a Resolution affirming the necessity for a new Hundred of twenty thousand acres at Strath Taieri, the boundaries to be as recommended by the Provincial Government, and that your petitioner is informed and believes that it is the intention of the said Provincial Government to give effect, so far as that Government is able, to the said Resolution, by recommending your Excellency to proclaim the proposed Hundred. 12. That the proclamation of such a Hundred would effect almost the entire ruin of your petitioner by depriving him of, without giving him any compensation for, fifteen thousand acres, comprising nearly half of the said run, and consisting of the low-lying pastoral land in the said run, and by leaving to your petitioner a tract of country which, for the most part, consists of high mountain ranges, which during the winter are continually covered with snow, and upon which it would be impossible, to depasture more than a small portion of your petitioner's sheep and cattle now upon the said run. 13. That if the proposed Hundred were proclaimed, your petitioner would be exposed to the further and vexatious disadvantage of having his sheep and cattle constantly impounded for straying upon the unenclosed Hundred, the said Provincial Council having recently passed a Resolution which, if legalized by Act of the General Assembly, would authorize such impounding, and it being scarcely possible, from the nature of the country, to prevent sheep and cattle from straying as aforesaid. 14. That the proposed mutilation of the said run, if carried out, would in fact render the remaining part of the run so useless as a run, that nothing short of the value of the lease of the whole run, and of the improvements thereon, would approach to an adequate compensation to your petitioner, who, even if compensated for the whole run as aforesaid, would yet suffer great loss from the ruinous sacrifice of stock which would be caused by a forced sale in a very depressed market. 15. That a very large part of the southern portion of the proposed Hundred is thickly covered with large masses of rock, which render it quite unfit for agriculture, and that, in the other portion of the said proposed Hundred, there is only a very small proportion of land at all suitable for that purpose. 16. That there is no market for agricultural produce within fifty miles of the proposed Hundred, and no agricultural farmer within thirty miles. 17. That it is notorious that such land as the proposed Hundred is not wanted for the purpose of bona fide settlement, according to the well understood principle of the Hundred system, nor, if proclaimed as a Hundred, is it intended to be used for any other than pastoral purposes by those who would then be able to acquire the right to depasture stock upon the Hundred by the purchase of an insignificant area therein. 18. That your petitioner ventures to submit to your Excellency that such an attempt to oust, without any compensation, the runholder (who, in reliance upon the good faith of the Government, has invested his all in the purchase, improvement, and stocking of his run), not for the purpose of the bond fide settlement of an agricultural class, but only to distribute among many stockowners the grazing area which rightfully belongs to and has been dearly purchased by one, is calculated to undermine all public confidence in the fairness of the Provincial Government in administering the land laws, and will certainly deter capitalists from risking their means in such precarious investments, unless, by the timely exercise of your Excellency's overruling authority, such practices shall be forbidden and public confidence thereby restored. Tour petitioner therefore humbly prays that, before dealing with the recommendation of the Provincial Government respecting the proposed Hundred, your Excellency will be pleased to appoint a Commission of capable and disinterested persons to examine into and report to your Excellency upon the matters above referred to, and that, in the event of such report confirming the substantial truth of the statements above mentioned, your Excellency will be pleased to refuse to proclaim the proposed Hundred. And your petitioner will ever pray.

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