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6

PETITIONS.

No. 4. PETITION OF FRANCIS WALLACE McKENZIE, OF GLENKEREICH, OTAGO. To His Excellency Sir G. F. Bowen, G.C.M.G., Governor of New Zealand, and the Executive Council thereof, The humble Petition of Francis Wallace McKenzie, Settler in the Glenkereich District of the Province of Otago, Sheweth, — That your petitioner is a retired captain of Her Majesty's and the Honorable East India Company's Service, in receipt of a pension. That your petitioner settled in this district in the year 1856, and was the first to open up this part of the country. That your petitioner is at present lessee of run number one hundred and sixty-eight, being about fifteen thousand acres of pasture land. That your petitioner has learned that Mr. John McKellar, of Tapanui Run, a part of which run was recommended for proclamation into a Hundred at the late meeting of the Provincial Council, has since then procured to be signed a petition to the General Government, purporting to be the spontaneous act of the inhabitants of the Tapanui Township, and praying that a portion of your petitioner's run should be declared a Hundred instead of a portion of the said John McKellar's run, as recommended by the Provincial Council. That the said petition has been got up solely in the interest of the said John McKellar, and not in the interest of the public of the Province ; and that the prayer of the said petition differs from the prayer of a petition from the same people and place, upon which was founded the recommendation of the Council for a new Hundred in this neighbourhood. That that portion of your petitioner's run proposed to be included in the Tapanui Hundred is separated from Tapanui and the remainder of the proposed Hundred by a large river, is not easy of access from that side, is of a character unsuited for agricultural settlement, and from its detached position would prove unavailable to the settlers on the Tapanui side for pastoral purposes. That the Provincial Council refused to recommend that this portion of your petitioner's run should be included in the Tapanui Hundred, and your petitioner was not examined by the Select Committee. Tour petitioner does therefore pray that no new Hundred be declared upon his run number one hundred and sixty-eight until at least your petitioner shall have accorded to him the usual grace of stating his objections thereto before the Provincial Government, or a Select Committee of the Provincial Council. And your petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray. E. W. McKenzie. Glenkereich, Tapanui, June 21, 1869.

No. 5. PETITION OF HARRIE CARR ROBISON. To His Excellency Sir George Ferguson Bowen, G.C.M.G., &c, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the Colony of New Zealand and its Dependencies, The Humble Petition of Sarrie Carr Bobison, of the Wairuna District, in the Province of Otago, in the Colony of Neiv Zealand, Bunholder, Humbly Sheweth,- — 1. That your petitioner was formerly the licensee from the Crown of runs numbered 31 and 78, in the said Province of Otago. 2. That, in compliance with the terms of " The Otago Waste Lands Act, 1866," your petitioner surrendered his licenses for the said runs, and accepted leases from the Crown in lieu thereof. 3. That the annual payments to the Crown in respect to the said runs while they were held under the original licenses, amounted to about thirty-five pounds only, while under the new leases the annual sums paid by your petitioner in respect thereof amount to abo"ut four hundred and twenty pounds. 4. That your petitioner was induced to surrender his original licenses and accept leases in lieu thereof on the understanding and belief that his occupation would not be disturbed until such parts of the said runs as are fitted for the purposes of agriculture and bond fide settlement were actually required for those purposes. 5. That your petitioner was fortified in such belief by the assurance of the New Zealand Government, as contained in a letter dated the sth day of March, 1862, from the Colonial Secretary to the Hon. Major Richardson, the then Superintendent of Otago, also by the assurances of good faith towards lessees from the Crown expressed by His Honor the present Superintendent of Otago, on the prorogation of the Provincial Council, on the sth day of June, 1867, and by the conviction that any breach of good faith towards Crown tenants would not be permitted by her Majesty's representatives or by the Government of the Colony. 6. That additional land is not required in the Wairuna District for bond fide agricultural settlement, an assertion which is supported by the fact that until a few months ago about eighteen thousand acres of land were open for sale adjacent to run number thirty-one, land of superior quality, more easy of access than any land held by your petitioner, and situate within a short distance from the landing place on the Pomahaka River, from which there is regular steam communication with Dunedin. That these lands were open for sale for five years, at twenty shillings per acre, and on being submitted to auction a few months ago they were" purchased by'two capitalists, namely, Messieurs Tolmie and Douglas, at prices varying from ten shillings to twelve shillings per acre.