tide questions originating therewith, as clause 6 of the present regulations is entirely of a negative character.

In paragraph 5 it is stated that the Waste Land Board is a Court similar to the Resident Magistrate’s. If so all cases for its decision must be brought formally before it and be within the limit of its jurisdiction. But the case of the Surveyor general and Mr. Farmer is not only not within those limits as prescribed by the Regulations, but has never been brought formally before it.

To the last paragraph the Board can only reply in the terms of a former resolution; that it in no way declines to carry out the provisions of the Land Regulations; nor will it decline to undertake any other duties which his Excellency the Officer Administering the Government or his Honour the Superintendent may deem it to the advantage of the Public service that it should perform, provided the duties required are distinctly stated and the necessary means placed at its disposal to carry them out.

READER WOOD,
Secretary.

WASTE LAND BOARD.

Superintendent’s Office, Auckland,
24th July, 1855.

THE subjoined correspondence, supplementary to that which was published in the Provincial Government Gazette, No. 22 (on July 13th last), is published for information.

W. BROWN,
Superintendent.

Colonial Secretary’s Office,
Auckland, 20th July, 1855.

Sir,—

With reference to the correspondence that has already taken place between your Honor and the General Government on the subject of the expenses connected with the Waste Lands Board of the Province of Auckland, I have the honour, by the direction of his Excellency the Officer administering the Government, to call your attention to the new features which this question has now assumed, in consequence of the intended meeting of the Provincial Council at an early day.

His Excellency, acting on your Honor’s representation that “no appropriation to the service of the Waste Lands Board has been made by the Provincial Council,” and “that the present dependence of the Waste Lands Board for effective action is upon the compliance of the General Government with their request for the means to work with”—consented to exceed what he conceived to be his strict duty, and sanctioned the payment by the General Government out of the Land Fund, of the expenses necessarily to be incurred by the Board (not including, as your Honor now appears to infer, the salaries of the Commissioners) in the laying out, sale, and occupation of the Waste Lands placed at their disposal.

In the adoption of this course, his Excellency was actuated solely by a desire to relieve your Honor and the Waste Lands Board from the embarrassing position in which you apparently felt yourselves to be, and with a view to prevent the very great inconvenience and injury to the Province which your Honor represented it would sustain from a stoppage of the Land Sales.

This arrangement was of course only intended as a temporary expedient, till you should be enabled to recommend, and the Provincial Council to pass, an Act appropriating the necessary sums for this purpose,—the question of adjustment being left for future consideration.

The meeting of the Provincial Council, which has now been called together for a Session in next month, will enable an appropriation of the necessary sums—which, as his Excellency is informed, have indeed already been agreed to by the Council on your Honor’s recommendation—to be formally made to meet the expenses connected with the Land Board.

Under these circumstances, I am directed by his Excellency to suggest for your Honor’s consideration whether it would not be a preferable course for you to make the necessary appointments and arrangements, upon the faith of the votes of the Council already passed (even provisionally only if you think that the better mode), than that his Excellency should make temporary appointments, at all events, to cease as soon as the Provincial Government shall have had an opportunity of making the necessary provision for the service of the Waste Lands Board, which will now be the case in so short a time.

When the present Auckland Land Regulations were under consideration, his Excellency’s attention was directed to the question whether the Province of Auckland, taking upon itself the administration of the Waste Lands, and thereby incurring expenses which were, in the case of other Provinces, defrayed by the General Government—should not receive some allowance from the Land Fund.

His Excellency is of opinion that the fair mode of settling this question would be to set apart for the administration of the Waste Lands in the Province of Auckland a sum equal to the average expenditure for the same purpose in the other Provinces, calculated on bases of the number of acres sold, and for the General Government to pay over to the Provincial Government any balance of the sums so set apart, which should, from time to time, remain unexpended by the former on the land, before giving the notification to the latter, as prescribed by the 81st section of the Auckland Land Regulations.

This mode of dealing with the question, his Excellency thinks, would be strictly fair to all the Provinces of New Zealand, as it would not involve them in any participation in the expenses of special Agents or Surveyors in any other extra expenditure which the Auckland Provincial Government may think it desirable to incur under the present Land Regulations, and it would, at the same time, place that Province on an equality with the others in respect of the amount expended by the General Government out of the Land Fund, in rendering the land available for sale.

His Excellency is not aware of any fairer plan and he has been and still is his wish and intention to give effect to some such equitable arrangement on the final adjustment of the Land Revenue.

I have the honor to be,

Sir,

Your Honor’s most obedient,
humble servant,
ANDREW SINCLAIR,
Colonial Secretary.

His Honor
The Superintendent
Of Auckland,
Auckland.