The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, APRIL 25, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3066, 25 April 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph MONDAY, APRIL 25, 1881.

A telegbam from Auckland on Saturday stated that Captain Steele, the agent for Messrs Grant aud Foster, the Lincolnshire farmers' delegates, has settled all outstanding difficulties, and expects to put some of the settlers, who are already at Auckland, on the land at once. This information is satisfactory as showing the bondJides of the negotiations between Messrs Grant and Foster and the Auckland Waste Lands Board. We had begun to think with others that we had seen and beard the last of the Lincolnshire capitalists for who c benefit it was thought desirable that the colony should make some sacrifice. It must be remembered that the Auckland Waste Lands Board did make a very considerable concession to thoee gentlemen. It reserved for a considerable period the block of land they themselves had chosen, and offered to sell it to them on easy terms at a low valuation. As the Christchurch Tress says, if Messrs Grant and Foster had offered an exceptionally hieh price for the land, and had proposed to deal with it in a manner calculated to benefit the public, if, in short, they had displayed any enthusiasm for establishing a genuine settlement at their own risk, there might have been some excuse for the prolonged reservation of the block in their favor, as against all other applicants. But they did nothing of the sort. They would not have anything to do with the land unless they got it dirt cheap. The price that they offered and that was agreed to be accepted, very foolishly, we think, by the Board, is really only a nominal price, and by no means represents the value of the land. Then the terms of payment are very easy, while the conditions of the occupation are just what the purchasers would wish them to be, in order that they might reap all the profits themselves. It is a case of " heads we win, tails you lose." If the Te Aroha goes ahead and becomes a populous and wealthy mining and agricultural district, then Messieurs Grant and Foster will make a fortune out of their bargain; whilst, on the other hand, if it proves a failure, at the worst they will not lose anything, because they will not have paid more than the price of pastoral land and they have timber thrown in. Why then, should the offer be kept open for them all this time? and why should they be allowed to play fast and loose with the colony as no "other applicants for land would be allowed for a moment to do ? The universal complaint among the colonists in the North is that they find it a'most impossible to get land, owing to the complications of the law, or the difficulties raised by the Waste Land Board or the Government. Men who have lived in the country for many years, and devoted a great deal of. money and energy to the work of improving it, are treated with scant ceremony if they seek to make an estate for themselves or a settlement for others. They are denounced as land - sharks and have to use all their wits to be able to make any headway at all. Yet Messieurs Grant and Foster, who have not the shadow of a claim on the public that we are aware of, far from meeting with difficulties, have every assistance offered them for entering into possession of a grand landed estate in one of the most fertile and favored spots in the colony. Before the magic name of " Lincolnshire farmers" laws Btand aside and Waste Lands Board and Government alike bow down submissively, and hasten to smooth the way. Why, we wonder ? It does not require much penetration to see that Messieurs Grant and Foster's main object is the highly innocent and laudable one of making money, and that their scheme of settling Lincolnshire farmers at Te Aroha is merely an attractive cloak for a very Bafe and profitable speculation. Surely the Auckland Waste Lands Board and the Minister for Lands must see that, if they are not wilfully blind. Yet they persist in treating the negotiation as if the purchase were an act of pure philanthropy on Messieurs Grant and Foster's part, and as if the colony were deeply indebted to those gentlemen for introducing it to the notice of their clients, the Lincolnshire farmers, even upou payment of a substantial bonus for each introduction.