The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1873

Evening Star, Issue 3118, 15 February 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1873

It is really time to rouse ourselves to the realities of our position. Matters have been allowed to take their course so long without understanding whither they tend, that our public interests arc jeopardised in a thousand different ways. Everyone who reads tho extract from the North Otago Times' correspondence respecting the Macrewhenua goldfield, must sec that, through one cause or another, there is a clashing of interests tending to loss and inconvenience to all. Flour mills are ftp* pessary, fellmongeries are necessary, and meat-preserving companies’ works arc necessary, and, to the working of all these, water is necessary ; but is it necessary to work these few industries that a goldfield should be denied a supply of water P We are not sufficiently acquainted with the topography of tho Macrewhenua to saj whether the description given of the peculiarities of the bed of the Kakanui stream is correct; but, assuming it to be so, it points to the short-sightedness of adopting all the fictions and monopolies arising out of a feudal tenure of land, in a country the resources of which were entirely unknown. We need not say one word about the manifest impolicy of millers, and even meat preservers, seeking to shut out large populations, who would be their best customers. Mon so blind to their own immediate interest* gre not likely to be able to understand the reasonableness of any advantage that is but prospective, however apparent. _ They come from a country where certain laws concerning land and water rights arc established; they have come to a land in which they were free to enact laws concerning them more in accordance with men's natural rights; but they reproduce the very worst features of them, to the detriment of every interest in the country. There is an evident tendency towards monopoly of land and other natural agents in Otago that will eventually, it’ not checked, effectually prevent development. Week after week, applications arc made to purchase large blocks of laud which, under present regulations, when all required conditions are fulfilled, tho Waste Land Board has no alternative hut to comply with. In this, as in all other instances, connected with land, it is parted in a loose hap.hazard way that is a virtual wasting of tho public estate. Land is sold to a miller, who acquires a water-right. He might have been restricted in it, had it been leased to him: a condition might have been inserted in his lease, that he should only be entitled to a certain supply of water, sufficient to turn his mill, or he might have had the lease granted him

on condition of working by steam, perhaps, in the end, an equally profitable way ; but, instead of that, the fee simple is parted with, and with it certain water rights, which give him power to prevent the development of a goldfield. It is no sufficient excuse to say, at the time the miller built his mill and bought Ins ground, no one ever imagined a goldfield would be discovered at Maerewhcnua. That is no doubt perfectly true, but it only establishes what we wish to bring out. Two faults in our system are glaring ; one is that, with unknown auriferous resources, such power should be vested in one or any number of individuals, to take a case into Court and prevent a profitable use being made of waters to which all men have an equal natural right. That they should be protected in their callings is one of the first essentials to industrial prosperity. 1 here must be stability in contracts, 01 all would bo chaos. The folly of the past has been in conferring under the name of “ right ” the power to deprive other people exerting their rights. The miller, in building his mill where he placed it, wanted water to turn it, but instead of granting him that only, he claims sovercignty over all the water that flow s down the river, and says to miners desirous of cutting a race, “Ton shall not have a drop, for ray mill needs it all.” A very small stream is sufficient to turn a very large wheel. It might not be right to say to the miller you should put up a fluming as the minors do; but it might be right to say to him, “A fluming will give you the requisite supply, which will also be sufficient for the meat-preserving company and the fellmongery. If this is made for you, if it should prove, as you say, there is not sufficient water for you and the miners in the natural outflow of the river, you have all you have a right to. The country cannot have the opening up ©f a large goldfield stopped because feudal water rights are claimed by a miller, n meat preserving company, and a fellmongery. They arc valuable and indespensablc industries, and so is gold mining. One must not be sacrificed to the other.” No nobleman at Home would have his estate ruined in such a way. He would retain in his own hands the power to turn it to the best advantage. He would know the value of every acre, and the purposes to which it was applicable, and would allow the use of it on rental suitable to its capabilities. And this leads us to the second glaring error of our land system; the Waste Land Board have no means of ascertaining correctly the value of the estate they are empowered to dispose of. If land is open for sale for a given period, and no bidders offer, and there are no objectors to the sale, it forms no part of their duty to ascertain its special value. No prospectors may have tested the land for metals, and the first applicant pays his deposit, has it surveyed, and secures it for himself and his heirs for ever. Accident may afterwards disclose its true value, but jt is too late. He cannot, it is true, lay claim to the gold and silver it contains ; but he can throw many legal impediments in the way of anyone else taking them, and deposits capahla of enriching a thousand men, and thus giving employment to five thousand more, are recklessly transferred to one man, who employs a eouple of shepherds and feeds three or four thop? sand sheep, for his own especial profit. Verily our clodocracy have done wonderful things in land legislation, and laud administration too, A few years more at our present rate of conversion, and the larger portion of Otago will be transformed into a country of perpetual sheep runs. Mr Ekid and his friends have professed one object, and succeeded to acL miration in securing another. They have shot at a pigeon and killed a jackdaw.