COUNTRY EDITION. The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3156, 9 August 1881, Page 2

COUNTRY EDITION. The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1881.

A short bill entitled an Act to amend the Land Regulations in force within the land district of Hawke's Bay has been introduced to the House of Representatives, and which repeals Appendix C of the " Land Act, 1877," substituting the following :—" That within the land district of Hawke's Bay all rural lands shall be divided according to quality into classes as follows:—(1.) First-clas-land; (2) Second-class land; (3.) Third-class land. And such classification shall be made by such persons, and according to such regulations and conditions, as the board shall direct and appoint: provided that no land which has been declared to be first or second class land shall cease to belong to such classes respectively without the consent previously obtained of the Governor in Council. 2. All lands of the first and second class respectively, not being laodg reserved from sale, shall be sold and disposed of by public auction at an upset price of 20s per acre for firet-claes lands, and fifteen shillings per acre for second class lands at such times and in such allotments, as the board shall from time to time publicly notify. 2. Third-class rural lands shall be offered for sale or lease by auction in such areas as shall from time to time be approved by the board, subject to the followiug conditions:—(l.) The minimum price not being less than five shillings per acre in case of sale, and the minimum per acre in case of lea?e shall be such as shall from time to time be. fixed for each such area by tbe board. (2.) Tn the case of leases, there shall be reserved to Her Majesty all minerals and mineral rights within 'every such area, and fall and complete powers to enable «iich rights to be exercised and enjoyed. (3.) Reserves may be made of all or any portion of the timber or forest land within such area; but liberty may be given to the purchaser or lessee to cut down and remove such portions of timber or forest as may be required for improvements or domestic use upon the area so sold or leased. (4.) No lease shall be for a longer term than twenty-one years: provided that every such lease shall contain a proviso authorizing the board to resume any portion of the lands comprised therein which may be required for the purposes of occupation or settlement: provided also that no one lease of land shall comprise an area of more tban tea thousand acres. 4. All such rural lands as have already been proclaimed as open for selection and purchase under the land regulations heretofore in force and known as the General Land Regulations of the Province of Wellington, And dated the fourth day of March, one thou«aud eight hundred and fifty-three, and the additional regulations of the said province dated the sixteenth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-6ve, are hereby withdrawn from the aforesaid regulations, and shall be open for sale or leaee as rural lands, according to their classification. 5. The proclamation by the Superintendent of the former Province of Hawke's Bay, dated tbe fifth day of October, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one, reserving from public sale certain lands in the Tautane block, as therein described, for the purpose of a quarantine ground for stock, is hereby revoked ; and another proclamation by the aforesaid Superintendent, dated the nineteenth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and seventytwo, reserving from pubUc sale certain lands as therein described, ia hereby revoked, in ao far as relates to a parcel of land in the liuataniwha district, containing fifty-one thousand acres, more or less, and another parcel of land in the same Ruataniwha district, containing forty-eight thousand acres, more or less. The lands so withdrawn from reservation as aforesaid shall be open for sale, lease, or occupation as rural lands, according to their classification. Notwithstanding anything in any Act formerly ia force iv (

relation to special settlements, the board may dispense with the condition requiring actual residence on any land occupied under any such Act which is either wholly or for the most part covered with biisb ; and in any such case a Crown grant for the land so occupied may be issued at any time, where the board are Bitisfied that the other conditions attachioi; *•'•> tn e occupation of such land h tve been satisfactorily fulfilled by the occupier thereof.