222 Auckland Provincial Government Gazette.

but the part from Whangapoua to Mercury Bay is a mere surveyor’s line. The cost of opening a road would be £750, and the advantage of the whole district of having a practicable roadway across from Coromandel to Mercury Bay would be very great.
I beg to request that you will be good enough to obtain the sanction of His Excellency the Governor to the expenditure of the amount named for this purpose.

I have, &c.,
G. Grey.

The Honourable
The Colonial Secretary,
Wellington.

Colonial Secretary’s Office,
Wellington, New Zealand,
9th May, 1876.

SIR,—
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the number and date quoted in the margin (No. 601, 22nd March), requesting that His Excellency’s sanction may be obtained for the expenditure of the sum of £750 to open up a road from Whangapoua to Mercury Bay.

In reply I have to express my regret that the Government do not at present feel justified in recommending His Excellency to sanction the expenditure.

I have, &c.,
CHAS. C. BOWEN.

His Honor the Superintendent,
Auckland.

PUBLIC NOTIFICATION.

Superintendent’s Office,
Auckland, 2nd June, 1876.

THE following Correspondence is published by direction of His Honor the Superintendent.

READER WOOD,
Provincial Secretary.

I.
Superintendent’s Office,
Auckland, 18th May, 1876.

My Lord,—
I beg, as Superintendent of the Province of Auckland, to bring under Your Excellency’s notice an act which I am advised is illegal and unjust, but which, I am informed, is about to be committed under the authority of the name and Proclamation of the Queen’s Representative in New Zealand, to the injury of Her Majesty’s subjects of both races, in order, at their cost, largely to benefit one or two persons.

On the 15th October, 1874, the late Governor of New Zealand issued a Proclamation, in which he solemnly declared that it was necessary that a certain district of land, described in that Proclamation, should be required by the public for the following three purposes, namely:—

For mining for gold.
For special settlements.
For the purposes of railway construction.

The Proclamation then went on to declare that, after the issue of the Proclamation, it was not lawful for any person to purchase or acquire from the Native owners any right, title, or interest, or contract for the purchase or acquisition from the Native owners of any right, title, or interest in the lands specified in the Proclamation.

It is clear that this Proclamation, issued in conformity with the provisions of “The Immigration and Public Works Act Amendment Act, 1874,” inflicted a grievous disability on the Native owners of the land. It prohibited them from putting their land publicly into the market for sale, and obtaining the best price for it. It bound them to sell to the Government or not at all; and, in fact, if they were forced or wished to sell, compelled them to take the price the Government chose to give for it.

Nothing prevented such a proceeding on the part of the Government being an act of the grossest oppression but the maxim that private interests must give way to the public good. If this maxim is ever enforced to the injury of some of the Queen’s subjects within a certain district, it certainly must be applied with the strictest justice and impartiality to all within those limits. I think I neither err nor exaggerate in stating that, to apply it to the poor and defenceless in a district, and to exempt from its operation the powerful and wealthy in the same district, would be a moral crime of a grave character; and if the powers of the Crown, and the authority of the Queen, should be used for the perpetration of such an offence, then a crime would be also committed against the majesty and justice of the Empire.

Your Excellency will observe that Natives were the lawful and undoubted owners of the land included in the Proclamation, although, the number and names of the Native owners not having been ascertained by the proper Court, no memorial of ownership could be at that time issued to them; and I am informed that the Native claims to these lands were only set down for hearing at Cambridge on the 3rd instant, so that up to that date no memorial of ownership could have issued. I am not aware that one has yet been issued.

Your Excellency will further observe that no provision having been made by law for the sale of any portion of their lands by the Natives interested to any European or other person previously to the issue of such memorial of ownership, therefore no European could have acquired lawful right of ownership in such land up to the present date. Nor do I think they could do so during the currency of the Proclamation.

I now beg to state that on the 30th April, 1875, I for the first time heard that Mr. Mackay, who was then Agent for the General Government, with the knowledge of the General Government and of the Native Department, was purchasing tracts of land for Mr. Russell from the Natives within the district included in the Proclamation alluded to in this letter.

I at once wrote to the Government, [see enclosures] pointing out that Europeans were, by the Governor’s Proclamation, prohibited from purchasing land in that district from the Natives, and that there was also the greatest and most urgent want of land for the public in the same district on which to locate intending settlers from the Thames.

I asked that the Government would be so kind as to furnish me, or direct Mr. Mackay to furnish me, with copies of all papers relating to such transaction, and of the instructions given to Mr. Mackay regarding it.

On the 6th May, 1875, the Government informed me, in reply, that Mr. Mackay was instructed to respect all existing agreements between Natives and Europeans, whether for land or timber, within