NEW ZEALAND

GOVERNMENT GAZETTE,

(PROVINCE OF WELLINGTON.)

Published by Authority.

VOL. XVI. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1869. No. 40.

Appointment of Members to the Executive Council.

Provincial Secretary’s Office,
Wellington, 24th November, 1869.

HIS HONOR the Superintendent has been pleased to appoint

Joe Dransfield, Esq.,
Edward Pearce, Esq.

to be members of the Executive Council.

A. Follett Halcombe,
Provincial Secretary.

Speech of His Honor the Superintendent on opening the first session of the fifth Provincial Council of the Province of Wellington.

Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Provincial Council:

In opening the first session of the fifth Provincial Council, I have to express my sincere regret at having been obliged to call you together at a period of the year so inconvenient to members residing at a distance from this city, more especially as the present session is necessitated by my own personal action.

You are aware that at the request of His Excellency’s Ministers, and with, I may say, the sanction of the General Assembly, I have consented to undertake, in conjunction with the Hon. Mr. Bell, a mission to England for the purpose of arranging sundry grave matters with the Imperial Government, and of paving the way for the initiation of undertakings calculated very materially to promote and hasten the progress of the Colony.

An apology is also, apparently, due to you for my having postponed this meeting to within a few days of my projected departure; but the truth is, my acceptance of the office of Commissioner was conditional on my being able to leave the Province relieved from the financial embarrassments, and other difficulties in which it has been for some time involved; and I certainly could not a fortnight ago have announced that I had in a great measure succeeded in those endeavors.

Besides it is not my intention to bring before you any measures likely to lead to protracted discussions.

I have to bring under your notice once more, the question of the Rangitikei-Manawatu purchase. After many, and vexatious delays, extending over a period of nearly three years, the validity of the purchase has at length been affirmed by the judgment of the Native Lands Court—the highest legal tribunal before which the question could be brought; and the title has been declared extinguished in the regular manner by a notification in the New Zealand Gazette.

Gratifying as it is to be able to announce that this valuable block of land will shortly be at the disposal of the Province for colonising purposes, it is not less so to be able to state that after a long and exhaustive investigation before the two ablest judges of the Land Court, the Manawatu purchase has been completely vindicated, and that the statements thereon, which from time to time I have made to the Council, have been in every particular substantiated and confirmed.

When I last addressed you I had occasion to comment unfavorably on the decision of the Native Lands Court at Otaki, which I ventured to characterise as “illogical, inconsequential, and in its practical operation unjust.” You will not fail to observe on perusing the elaborate and interesting judgment of their Honors Messrs Fenton and Maning, which I have now the pleasure of laying before you, that the terms which I used in reference to the Himatangi case are more than justified by the dictum of the Chief Judge on the broad question of intertribal title; and it will scarcely surprise you to be informed that the block of 5000 acres which was awarded to Parakaia and his hapu by the Otaki Court, and which he neglected to take up within the period prescribed by the Act—thereby allowing the award to lapse—reverts to the Crown.