The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Otago, to the Secretary for Crown Lands.

Sir,—

I have the honor to enclose a memorial from certain tenants of Crown lands occupying the reserve on the east side of Princes Street, relative to which reserve a question arises whether it is a reserve for the Maoris or a reserve for a quay. The statements made by the memorialists are substantially true, and there can be no doubt that the rents paid could not be obtained if the land were now offered by auction. The memorialists have to put up buildings in many cases of a substantial character, hence they are necessitated to pay a high rent or abandon the improvements they have made. I am of opinion that on an average £3 per foot frontage would be a fair rent, and I have therefore to recommend that I be instructed to make such reductions as I may find advisable, not being less than £3 per foot, except in the case of sections 15, 16, and 17, which are not worth more than £2 per foot frontage.

Enclosure in No. 30.
To the Secretary for Crown Lands, Auckland.

This, the Memorial of the undersigned Residents in the Town of Dunedin, respectfully brings under your notice the under-mentioned case of hardship and oppression, to wit:

Your memorialists became tenants to the General Government in February, 1862, in so far that they at auction were the preferred lessees of the Crown Reserves situated on the south-east side of Princes Street South, as per plan attached herewith.

Your memorialists on arriving, with many others in the Province, at the very height of the gold mania, when fictitious prices for everything as well as land were current, and business sites being of a very limited extent, the leases of these allotments above referred to brought what has now turned out to be a most extraordinary and extravagant price, and such that your memorialists now feel unable to pay, and humbly crave your honorable consideration with a view to a reduction at the expiry of the present year ending the 5th of February, 1865, on the following grounds, viz.:—

1.	No township had at that period become settled; therefore every article of necessity for the requirements of the digging population were supplied by the merchants of Dunedin, and every available site was therefore greedily taken up, no matter at what cost.
2.	Merchants and traders have now followed in the wake of the digging population, and have settled themselves on the various townships in business, thereby lessening the demand for supplies from your memorialists, which they practically feel.
3.	The town of Dunedin having thereby become an entry port for the interior, in which have become many thriving and prosperous townships, the general prosperity of the Province being still page 125maintained, this result has brought on your memorialists heavy and severe pecuniary loss in the transposition of the trade; and your memorialists having erected buildings of an expensive and permanent kind, compel them from necessity to ask for a reduction in their annual payments as your tenants.
4.	Though your memorialists have the privilege to remove these buildings at the end of the year, yet their doing so would render the material almost valueless, and the returns you then receive from our successors would be very much less than your memorialists would now be willing to give.

Your memorialists humbly lay this memorial for your Honor's consideration, and earnestly crave acquiescence therein, for which as in duty bound your memorialists will ever pray.