MEMORIAL OF THE SETTLERS OF WELLINGTON AND THE NEIGHBOURING DISTRICTS ON THE LAND CLAIMS ORDINANCE AND PASTURAGE REGULATIONS
APRIL 1852

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 696, 3 April 1852, Page 3

MEMORIAL OF THE SETTLERS OF WELLINGTON AND THE NEIGHBOURING DISTRICTS ON THE LAND CLAIMS ORDINANCE AND PASTURAGE REGULATIONS

To His Excellence Sir George Grey, &c, &c, &c.
We, the undersigned Settlers and Landowners of Wellington, in the colony of New Zealand, beg respectfully to express to your Excellency our strong sense of the serious evils to our interests, and injury to the colony, arising from the Act to regulate the affairs of certain of the New Zealand Company's settlements, passed during the last session of Parliament.

Under the New Zealand Company's Land Claimants Ordinance, passed by the General Legislature of the colony, the different questions arising out of these claims were arranged on a liberal and equitable basis, and Crown Grants were offered to the land purchasers and holders of land under the Company's Compensation Scrip, which gave them a valid and unquestionable title; whereas, the Grants offered to them, under the Act of Parliament referred to, are of so qualified a nature, that no land purchasers will agree to accept them, while serious doubts are entertained whether any titles can be issued under the Act of Parliament to the owners of land selected under the Company's Compensation Scrip.

The Act of Parliament revives the Terms of Purchase and Pasturage of Land, issued by the New Zealand Company in Wellington, and in force at the date of the surrender by the Company of its charters to the Government, which fix the pxice of rural land in this settlement, in blocks of 25 acres, at ?per acre: the effect of these terms, when in force under the Company, was such that no rural land was sold in this settlement. But since that period so much additional land has been granted in compensation to resident and absentee land purchasers as to reduce the price of rural land, except in particular situations, considerably below 20s per acre. The attempt to fix the price of land, therefore, at ?per acre would, we believe, be absolutely to stop any sales of land by the Government, while the Terms of Pasturage are such, and the tenure of the land so precarious (being annual leases terminable at any time by six months' notice, and no allowance being made for improvements,) as altogether to prevent any settler from investing his capital in pastoral pursuits under them; and these terms appear in a still more unfavourable light when contrasted with the liberal pastoral regulations issued by your Excellency, and which were superseded by the present Act of Parliament.

For, these and other weighty reasons, we respectfully beg your Excellency will, by suspending the Act referred to (except such of its provisions as relate to the Trust Funds at Nelson), relieve the settlers from the serious evils which would result from its operation; and that you will cause the arrangements under the Land Claimants Ordinance to be immediately revived, and the Pastoral Regulations issued by your Excellency to be again put in force, and a uniformity of management to be established of the Crown Lands of the Colony under the Australian Land Sales Act, and the Charter and Royal Instructions.

We strongly protest against the Imperial Parliament legislating upon matters affecting the daily transactions of the settlers, except upon the petition of the colonists. From the distance, the imperfect means of information, and the rapid changes which arise in colonies, it is impossible that the Home Government should be able to adapt its measures to the state of things existing at the time of their coming into operation. As far as we have been able to observe, the general tendency of such interference has been either useless or injurious.

In determining the amount to be paid to the New Zealand Company, we hope her Majesty's Government will take care that the amount of lands granted in compensation to its purchasers, and otherwise alienated by the Company, together with such other expenses since necessarily incurred by the Local Government as may be equitably charged to the debit of the Company, will be deducted from the gross amount said to be due to it; and we protest against any attempt to charge the settlers with the payment of interest on the debt alleged to be due to the Company, as they were in no way consenting parties to such an arrangement, while any attempt to charge this amount on the Colonial revenue would, in our opinion, be in the highest degree unconstitutional and unjust.

(The names without any address are for the most part settlers in Wellington.)- Presumably the X means ex as in ex-settler. The names have been checked against the 1852 NZ Gazette where possible.

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