WHEREAS under “The Special Powers and Contracts Act, 1881,” a Crown grant of forty-seven acres within the Town of Onehunga was authorised to be issued, on or after the first day of June, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, to the Corporation of the Borough of Onehunga, in trust for the inhabitants of the Borough of Onehunga and the County of Eden, in exchange for an endowment of one thousand acres reserved in the Punakitere Survey District for the Town of Onehunga under “The Municipal Corporations Act, 1876,” and the said forty-seven acres were to be apportioned into a rifle-range, cemetery, and place of recreation, in such proportions as the Governor should think fit:

And whereas the grant for the cemetery, though thus authorised, was not made during the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, when the said Borough Council could, before the passing of the Cemeteries Act, on the fifteenth of September, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, have opened a public cemetery within the borough, but was made on the second of October, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-three:

And whereas ten acres of the said forty-seven acres were on the last-mentioned date granted to the Mayor, Councillors, and Burgesses of the Borough of Onehunga, in trust for the inhabitants of the Borough of Onehunga and the County of Eden, for a cemetery; and it is desirable that the intention of Parliament, as expressed in “The Special Powers and Contracts Act, 1881,” and in the grant, should be fulfilled, and that, under the circumstances, section forty-nine of “The Cemeteries Act, 1882,” which prohibits the establishment of a cemetery within the limits of any borough, should be declared not to apply to the aforesaid ten acres:

And whereas it is desirable that the crowded burial-grounds within the heart of the Borough of Onehunga, in Queen Street and Church Street of the said borough, as the same are described in the first part of the Schedule hereto, should respectively be closed, and this may not be done until another suitable site is provided for the purpose:

And whereas the aforesaid ten acres are situate on a promontory jutting out into the waters of Manukau Harbour, and bounded on the landward side by a high road, separating the same entirely from the occupied portions of the borough, and the opening of a cemetery thereon could not be injurious to the inhabitants of the said borough, and is a suitable site for the purpose aforesaid: