His Honor the Superintendent, Otago, to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

Sir,—

Referring to the last paragraph of my letter, No. 4,350, of the 20th April last, addressed to the Honorable the Postmaster-General, on the subject of a certain public reserve in Princes Street, Dunedin, in which I state it to be my intention to lay the matter before the Provincial Council then in session for an expression of opinion by that body thereon, I now do myself the honor to forward copy of the Report of the Select Committee that was appointed to look into the merits of the case, which Report was adopted on the 17th May.

It appears to me that any further remarks are unnecessary.

I have, &c.,

J. Hyde Harris,
Superintendent.

The Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Wellington.

Enclosure 1 in No. 41.
Report of Select Committee upon His Honor's Message No. 4, Session XX.

Your Committee report that, after full inquiry into all the circumstances connected with the reserve in question, having carefully examined all existing documents bearing upon the subject, having also taken the evidence of several of the longest residents in the Province, among others that of the Rev. Dr. Burns, W. H. Cutten, and A. C. Strode, Esqrs., whose intimate acquaintance with the early affairs of the Province render their testimony of peculiar value, they have unanimously arrived at the following conclusions:—

1.	That in the original survey of Dunedin by the New Zealand Company's Surveyor, the late Mr. Kettle, the land referred to in the Message was laid off in common with the rest of the water frontage, into quarter-acre sections, open for selection under the New Zealand Company's land orders.page 131
2.	That prior to the first party of immigrants selecting under their land orders, the whole of the water frontage opposite what was expected to be the business part of the town was withdrawn from sale, with a view to the ultimate formation of a public quay or wharf, and for general purposes. That such withdrawal was made under the direction of the late Colonel Wakefield, the Principal Agent of the New Zealand Company in the Colony, under instructions of the Secretary in London, Mr. Harrington.
3.	That several of the first immigrants insisted upon selecting the very spot alluded to in His Honor's Message, inasmuch as it appeared open for selection upon the official map of the town exhibited in New Zealand House before they left London, and that they were induced to waive their rights of selection solely on the ground that it had been withdrawn for public purposes, and would in fact enhance the value of the sites which they actually did select.
4.	That from the arrival of the first settlers down to the present time the reserve in question has been partly used as the site of various public buildings; in the first instance an hospital having been erected upon it by the New Zealand Company, and subsequently immigrants' barracks, and stores for luggage, constabulary depot, &c., &c., by the Provincial Government.
5.	That in 1853 Mr. Walter Mantell, the then Commissioner of Crown Lands, recommended His Excellency to set apart the land in question as a Maori Reserve, which recommendation appears to have had His Excellency's sanction.
6.	That this recommendation was made and sanctioned without the knowledge or concurrence of the several parties interested, to wit, the Provincial Government and the land purchasers, whose rights were invaded by such reserve.
7.	That had the circumstance been known even at the time of Mr. Mantell's retirement from office, which it was not, in consequence of that gentleman having stripped his office of all official documents, the same action would have been taken to set the reserve aside as was successfully adopted with respect to another public reserve, known as Moray Place or the Octagon, which at the instigation of Mr. Mantell would have been granted as a site for a church, but for the strenuous action and protest of the Provincial authorities.
8.	That the alienation of Moray Place (or the Octagon) would have been no more an act of confiscation and an arbitrary disregard of the vested rights of the land purchasers, as those rights were defined in the terms of purchase as between themselves and the New Zealand Company, and subsequently homologated by the Imperial Government, than would be the alienation of the reserve now under consideration.
9.	Your Committee therefore recommend that the foregoing facts be communicated to the General Government, under the full assurance that not only will the Crown Grant for the reserve in question be at once issued in terms of its original destination, but that the money which has been derived from the same will be restored to the Province as its rightful owner.