The North Eastern Ensign at KellyGang 1/10/1872
TO THE EDITOR. OF TIIE NORTH EASTERN ENSION.
Sir,-On Friday last my long delayed app1lication came before the Land Board and is not yet decided. Now, as, I cannot got any answer as to the matter from Mr Nixon, but on my applying to him for information was told by him that I was a dummy, und. not being on one myself I was making my relations dummies as well. To this charge I must give a distinct denial, and I would ask what right Mr Nixon or any other member of the Board to say I am a dummy. I am not. one, nor have I ever acted to get land for others which I call dummiyism as one of the members of the board has done, and I am prepared to make any affidavit that may be required of me that I am applying for this land for myself alone and not for Mr. M'Bean or any other person. JAMES STEERS.
TO THE.EDITOR 0F THE NORTH EASTERN ENSIGN.
Sir,-It is quite, time that the animosity shown to the pastoral tenants, and :others by two members of the Local Land Board, Benalla, was prominently brought before the notice of their superiors and the public, so that equity and justice may be reinstated at those meetings, held presumably for that purpose. To facilitate this I will state, with your permission, some circumstances which occurred at the board meeting yesterday, which I think will prove to the satisfaction of any one disinterested that neither the District Surveyor- nor the President of the Benalla shire have the necessary qualifications to adjudicate impartially on any matters connected with the above interest. Under Land Act 1860, 110th clause, 600 acres was reserved to me on this station for my sheep wash improvements valued at over £600, and marked in red as reserved on the Government plans.
Last year application was made by James Steers for 320 acres of this reserve, when it wis refused by the majority of the board on the grounds that the land was already reserved to me. The District Surveyor's (Mr Nixon) minute, however, being that, he did not see how it could. be refused,' and the President of .the Benalla Shire refusing to vote as he considered Steers a dummy for me. The matter was referred to the head office, and no definite reply has yet been replied by either of us, although my case has been so strongly represented as to show that in event of the land being granted as pegged I would positively be prevented from making use of my improvements.
In the meantime, however, another applicant (Blackburn) ) pegs on the 3rd ult. not only the land already pegged by Steers but in all about 600 acres of unsurveyed country with over one mile frontage to a permanent stream by about on mile and a half in depth, about 500 acres of which are within my reserve. Having noticed that in these disputed cases the selector, to say the least, is treated liberally. 1 offered yesterday to compromise the matter with the board by allowing the selectors to have all the frontage applied for - being the best and only good land - and a depth of about 40 chains, provided 20 chains width was then marked as reserved for access to my sheepwash. Steers consented to this being excised at the time of his application. Blackburne, yesterday, offered to take "any 320 acres the Board chose to give him," and the Chairman and Mr Brown, members of the Board, recommended that the compromise should be accepted.
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