Appendix.
Message No. 4.—(Brought up by Mr. Rennie, May 17.)

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 earlier settlers in the Province,—among others, that of the Rev.Dr. Burns, W. H. Cutten, and A. C. Strode, Esquires, whose intimate acquaintance with the early affairs of the Province renders their testimony of peculiar value,—they have unanimously arrived at the following conclusions:—

1st.	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 frontages, into quarter-acre sections, open for selection under the New Zealand Company's land orders.page 138
2nd.	That prior to the first party of emigrants 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their land orders, the whole of the water frontage opposite what was expected to be the business part of the town was withdrawn from sale with a view to the ultimate formation of a public quay or wharf, and for general public purposes; that such withdrawal was made under the direction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.
3rd.	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they left London, and that they were induced to waive their right of selection solely on the ground that it had been withdrawn for public purposes, and would, in fact enhance the value of the sites which they actually did select.
4th.	That from the arrival of the first settlers down to the present time, the reserve in question has been partially 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.
5th.	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.
6th.	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.
7th.	That had the circumstances 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.
8th.	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.
9th.	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.