D.—Bd

4

Crown lands, on the east by Government reserve for railway and public road, on the south by Crown lands, and on the west by road reserve. Description : Bush ; low land. 21ft December, 1888. John Monegatti, Sergeant's Hill, Bushman. Received at Westport, this 21st day of December, 1888, at 3.30 o'clock p.m.—E. C. Kelling. District Land Officer.

The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Nelson. I hereby apply, under "The Land Act, 1885," Appendix C, for a timber license of about 80 acres of Crown land, the particulars of which are as follow :—District: Ohika, Block I. Boundaries : Bounded on all sides by Crown lands, and situate between G. R. Lamplough's leasehold and Native Reserve No. , on the Loop-line Road, from Addison's Road to the Nine-mile Ferry on Buller River, south side. Description : Bush land, part pakihi and swamp. 10th December, 1888. E. Beadshaw, Queen Street, Westport, Labourer. Received at Westport, this 10th day of December, 1888, at 10.45 o'clock a.m.—E. C. Kelling, District Land Officer. The Commissioner of Crown Lands : Mr. Snodgrass has seen Mr. Bradshaw, and he states that if the land described in the application is not available he would wish to have the application cancelled.—Henry Trent, for Chief Surveyor. 9th January, 1889.

The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Nelson. I beg to apply for a timber license over 100 acres of land at Larry's. The ground applied for adjoins Sections 24 and 27.(which are the property of the Caledonian Quartz-mining Company, Limited), as shown on tracing attached : it is required by Caledonian Company for supplying their mine with timber. George Wise, Manager, sth February, 1889. Caledonian Quartz-mining Company (Limited). Post-office order, £1 Is., for deposit enclosed. Newspaper containing advertisement also posted. Received, Bth February, 1889, at 10 a.m.—A. J. Redgrave, for Commissioner. Refused, 21st February, 1889.— Alfred Greenfield, Commissioner.

The Commissioner of Crown Lands, Nelson. I heeeby apply for a license for cutting, felling, and removing timber off Crown land, under "The Land Act, 1885," over 80 acres of land, as per plan attached, the particulars of which are as follow:—District: Mawheranui. Boundaries : Bounded on the northward by Main Grey Valley Road; southward by Crown land; westward by public road; and eastward by Crown land: the land applied for being part of sections numbered 73 and 74, Mawheranui Survey District. Martin Shanahan, Contractor, Greymouth. Received at Ahaura this 28th day of May, 1890, at 2 o'clock p.m.—F. H. Ibbetson, Local Land Officer.

WESTLAND. (Memorandum.) Hokitika, 9th January, 1890. Be Valuation of Midland Railway Lands.—Under section 18 of the Midland Railway Contract the company is selecting lands in the Waimea and other districts, lands which, on account of their known auriferous value, the company cannot purchase, but can utilise the timber growing thereon. Good timber lands accessible to existing sawmills are of considerable value, and as much as £6 and, in some isolated cases, £8 per acre has been paid by some of the sawmillers for the right to cut the timber on certain freehold lands. I am requested, under subsection (2), section 33, of the Midland Railway Contract to assess the value of some of these timber lands, and the question is whether, in doing so, I am to take into consideration the value of the timber, or whether I shall assess them simply as lands for settlement. In the former case their value may be, say, £5 per acre, and in the latter they will be worth no more than any of the other lands around them—say, £1 per acre, because the heavier the timber on lands intended for settlement the greater the cost to the settler to bring such land under cultivation. In all cases of applications for assessment of values of lands which I know the company cannot purchase on account of its auriferous nature it must be borne in mind that I am fully aware that it is not for settlement purposes, but purely for the purpose of selling the timber thereon that the application is made, and that in doing so they may, on the basis of their scale of charges for timber-licenses, receive as much as £20 royalty from a single acre of good timber land. The stringency of the conditions under which the company "is leasing timber lands in the Grey Valley, and now propose to do so also within Westland, is severely felt by people in the timber trade, and is much commented upon just now, and the opinion is freely expressed that the Government assessment of these timber la ( nds, which bring so rich a harvest to the company, should be proportionately high, &c. This, amongst others, is the opinion of some of the members of the Board to whom outside representations have been made on this matter. Now, after carefully examining the several Midland Railway Acts, the contract, correspondence, &c, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot, in assessing the value of the land, take into consideration the present demand for and consequent value of the timber growing thereon. In one of the cases under consideration it is quite sure that, if it was not for the keen competition between two of the sawmills close by, the hundred acres would not fetch more than any of the rest of the 1 and thereabout, namely, £1 per acre.