The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2490, 8 February 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1871.

We do not know how far Mr Reynolds’s lecture of last night will satisfy the cavillers at the Hundreds Regulations Act, although it ought to convince them that there was great necessity for something being done to open up the land for settlement. It is amazing to witness the pertinacity with which some persons insist upon forcing their own dogmas upon other people. Mr Stout and Mr Sievwright, for instance, tried to the utmost to shew by a series of questions that the Hundreds Regulations Act had done injustice to somebody—to whom we really could not discover, except it was to squatters within goldfields. Their chief aim was to bind the lecturer down to the Waste Lands Act of 1866, with the provisions of which they profess themselves content ; and when it was shewn that by another Act—the Goldfields Act, passed the same year—one portion, and the larger portion, of the squatters had privileges given them from which the remainder were excluded, they strove to shew that all could have been placed upon an equal footing by withdrawing patches of laud from the operation of the Goldfields Act for the purpose of settlement. The idea implied was, that by this withdrawal those squatters from whose run that section was withdrawn, would not be entitled to the compensation provided to be paid under the Act. A very ingenious trick, truly! Not very honest—not very original; for, unless we deceive ourselves, it emanated from the fertile brain of the very intellectual anti conscientious member for Bruce. As shewing what might be done by a certain party, if they ever had the power, the political world ought really to be obliged to Mr Stout. No man need henceforth be deceived by professions of honesty and justice \ but it behoves every man, when such zealots m a particular cause profess so much, to strip off the mask and shew Avhat lies beneath : and when that is done, there is not an honest man in the community who would not condemn the course pointed out. Whether or not the Goldfields Act of 1866 was a wise and just law, is open to question. With that, so far as concerns this argument, we have nothing to do. We are quite open to admit that it gave privileges to runholders within goldfields that made an invidious distinction between them and an imaginary line, bounding what was supposed to be auriferous land. But its operation was submitted to after it became law, and under the security of that law men had been induced to invest property and to follow certain lines of industry. As a matter of course, any business man, in estimating chances of success, is willing to pay such a price for the use of an instrument as affords him a reasonable prospect of profit, or as gives him a probable opportunity of selling it for what he gave for it, should he wish to dispose of it. The Goldfields Act, through providing unlimited compensation for land taken out of runs on proclaimed goldfields, and prescribing the way and limiting the quantity of land to be taken from each run, gave a value to such runs, that justified a person investing in grazing industry in giving a much higher price for the grazing rights than would otherwise have been prudent. We do not know that it matters materially to the abstract justice of the question whether the original holders retained the runs or transferred them to others. At any rate, many of them changed hands under security of that Act ; and we need only ask whether it would have been right to say, “Although by .law “ you are entitled to be compensated “ for the land we want for settlement, “ and for the grazing rights on which “ you have paid a high price, we will “ swindle you out of your rights by “ withdrawing it from the goldfields.” Yet this would virtually have been done by the course proposed by we believe Mr Brown, and advocated by Mr Stout, The latter gentleman justified it by the example of Victoria ; brrt since there never was such an Act as the Goldfields Act of 1866 in Victoria, his keen logical faculty must either have failed him for once, or in pure fun he must have tried how easily he could “gammon" a meeting. We need not point out how necessary to prosperity it is that there should be stability in legislation. We know of nothing more detrimental to industry, than such backwards and forwards legislation that no man can invest capital with any well-grounded certainty of profit. This has been one great evil of Mr Reid’s administration. Instead of accepting a law he has no power to alter, by opposition to it he has led to a sense of insecurity that prevents enterprise. To act upon such a principle as making a law one session and repealing it the next, is repudiation, unless, as a condition, provision is made for giving compensation to those

who suffer by the alteration ; and no compensation can meet the cost of plans of life blighted. Even the Hundreds Regulations Act, by limiting the amount to be given for grazing rights, has worked unjustly to many, by reducing the value of runs for which high prices had been given, trusting in the provisions of the Goldfields Act. It must never be forgotten that administration more than laws induces or retards progress ; and we cannot but distrust the administrative abilities of that party with which Mr Stout has identified himself, when they advocate plans that savor of repudiation.