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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 2999, 4 February 1881, Page 2

The Commissioner for Crown Lands on the West Coaßt has very properly determined to give no encouragement to speculators in deferred payment land on the Waimate Plains. He has expressed an intention to admininster the law strictly, and to rigidlj enforce the residence clause. This course has raised a bornets'-nest about him. The speculators who run the price of the sections up, and bought the land over the heads of intending bona fide settlers, are now aghast at the discovery that they will either have to occupy the land or forfeit it. The Commissioner has told these people that he will not allow a purchaser of deferred payment land to part with his interest—to get rid of bis self-imposed burden—until he has made it reasonably plain that at the time he bought he fully intended to settle on the land in a bona fide manner, and that since then he has done all that the Act requires to entitle him to withdraw in favour of some one else. The Wanganui Herald, which professes to be a " liberal organ," has attacked the Commissioner because he has thuo set his face against the landsharks, and says that it will]be fatal to settlement if transfers are not allowed. The Wanganui Chronicle, on the other hand, says that in any case of an application for transfer the Commissioner is fully justified in taking into account the position which the applicant holds in the community. If a practising barrister, for instance, or a tradesman in a large way of business, or a bank official, has purchased a deferred payment section and wants to transfer it, the presumption is fair that the original purchase from the Government was for speculative purposes and not settlement, and the application ought to be refused unless the person making it is able effectually to rebut the presumption. If the barrister or tradesman, respectively, can show satisfactorily that be intended to throw up his practice or his business, as the case may be, and commence life again as a small farmer, it will then be time to enquire whether he has done what the law requires up to the date of making his application. If so, and the proposed transferree is a suitable person, the Comrois&ioner ought to, and no doubt would, give his assent to the proposed arrangement. The holder of the land must make bona fide progress with his improvements. He must build, fence, and cultivate, and (assuming a proper system of inspection) if he neglect these particulars, which we have always regarded a 9 having something to do with settlement, he will forfeit his land, and an opportunity will at once arise for some one else to step into his shoes. A transfer from the original purchaser there is sure to be, but not such a one as will bold out a temptation for speculators to attend deferred payment sales for the purpose of purchasing sections and reselling them at a profit. One of the provisions with reference to improvements (section 63, sub-section) is that the selector shall, within one year from the date of his license, bring into cultivation not less than one-twentieth of the laud if rural land, and one-tenth if suburban land. The whole scope of the deferred payment sections is to tie the selector down to make legitimate use of the land. It is true that if speculators are unable to effect transfers, forfeiture for non-improvement will not follow for many months, and to that extent settlement will be deferred; but, on the other hand, when it becomes known that speculators in deferred payment lands cannot get rid of their bargains, bona fide, intending settlers will at future sales be entirely relieved from the competition of the land-sharks, and will have a better chance of obtaining sections at a reasonable rate. So far from regarding difficulty | or impossibility of transfer, especially during the first few months following selection, as a bar to settlement, we believe it to be an excellent safeguard against the robbery of the poor man.