18 5 6.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

PETITION OF JAMES GILLIGAN.

Presented to the House of Representatives June 6, 1856, and ordered to be printed. The humble Petition of the undersigned James Gilligan, to the Honourable the House of Representatives of the Colony of New Zealand, Humbly Sheweth, — That your petitioner about two years ago joined an Association called " The Small Farms Association," that your petitioner paid £20 for a selection or choice in the Suburban Sections then in the course of surveying at Greytown, in the District of Wairarapa in the Province of Wellington; your petitioner having spent considerable time in examining the Block enclosed in the Suburban boundary of Grey town. That after the completion of the surveys, the Greytown Block was said to contain 100 forty-acre allotments, in which your petitioner held an early choice. That immediately on the eve of selection it was discovered that there existed an unsatisfied Maori claim over what your petitioner considers the better half of this Block, taking away or interfering with about 50 Sections. That on the day of selection a Meeting of the Association, called for the purpose of considering the propriety of selecting, proceeded to select there and then from the remaining fifty Sections. That your petitioner depending upon the representations of the Crown Lands Commissioners and other official persons, that the other land should be certainly acquired from the Natives, declined choosing in the worst half of the Township by which he was said to waive his right of early choice. That about a year and a half after this your petitioner was invited to select on the plains of Taratahi, a district seven or eight miles more remote from town and over a rapid and dangerous river, on land of a description very inferior in quality to that in which your petitioner had hoped to select. That your petitioner has sustained considerable loss and inconvenience in consequence of his not being able to occupy land which he had a fair right to select and occupy. Your petitioner therefore prays your honourable House to consider the case with a view to giving your petitioner, and others who are in a precisely similar situation with him, that meed of justice which is their due. And your petitioner will ever pray, &c, JAMES GILLIGAN,

E.—No. 4.