The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23. 1873.

Evening Star, Issue 3174, 23 April 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23. 1873.

The question of the administration of the waste lands of the Crown, though hackneyed, is a subject that should be ever fraught with importance and interest in every Colonial community. It is worn threadbare enough, at all events, in Otago ; but yet some valuable lessons may be learned from noticing how the lands of the Provinces in other portions of this Colony have been disposed of, and what portion of the Provincial estates yet remains to he realised. Men of the present generation, who have succeeded in divesting themselves of the prejudices engendered by their education, and are enabled to look impartially through the mist which feudal institutions have left on the present phase of society, have been led to the conclusioir that the common gifts of nature should be held in common, and that no man, or class of men, should possess the monopoly of such gifts; but that they should in some measure be either the property of all, or placed within the reach of the deserving. The class of men here indicated are not to be confounded with the socialists, either of the past or the present, but rather as men who feel an interest in humanity, and are desirous of seeing the relations of man to nature placed on a legitimate footing. From a return placed before the House of Representatives, at a cost of £d 10s, we are informed not only what land each Province has sold, and ■the amount of money received by such sales, but we are also told what land 'each Province still has unsold ; so that we can see what the various Provincial Governments have done with their es-

bates, and the amount of money they have realised. Confining our attention to our own island first, we are pub in possession of the following facts :

The first and most striking inference that etui be drawn from the above schedule is, that land can almost as readily bo sold at 40s per acre as at 10s—the Canterbury land sales prove this fact. The high price obtained in Westland can be accounted for from the fact that the land sold is principally town sections. The second lesson to be learned is that Nelson and Marlborough have sold 1,229,269 acres, for £50,000 less than Southland has obtained for 510,000 acres; while the consolatory reflection arises that a large amount of land in the various Provinces remains unsold and that there are no Native difficulties to prevent its being disposed of or held as security for money invested in public works. The returns for the North Island are as follow ;

It must be remembered that confiscated lands in this hitter return are not included. There are with these confiscated lands about 25,000,000 acres belonging to Native owners in the North Island. While Auckland has succeeded in disposing of her Provincial estate for a less price per acre than any other Province, it must not be for-

gotten that of the lands “ otherwise disposed of” throughout the Colony than by sale, amounting in the aggregate to 1,418,000 acres, Auckland alone

had contributed towards this amount 1,035,000 acres, or nearly four times the amount so alienated by the whole, of the Middle Island. It is impossible to look over these returns, even in the most cursory manner, without being convinced there must be something radically wrong in the administration of the lands of the Colony. All the idle clap-trap we have been in the habit ot hearing retailed at hustings and Provincial Councils, about cheap land being necessary to obtain prosperity and settlement, here finds a perfect refutation ; as it is notorious that Nelson, Marlborough, Auckland, and other needy Provinces have not succeeded by this means in obtaining either prosperous settlements or affluent circumstances.

There is a time in mercantile houses when the process called stock-taking takes place, and more especially is this the case when a merchant has branch establishments in different localities. He is enabled by this means to know what portions of his business pay, what branches are expedient to be maintained, and what should bo wound up. The Provincial Governments of this Colony are not unlike the various branches of a large mercantile house ; and in the abstract of accounts gone over, we have, us it were, taken stock of our own resources, and are enabled, not only to understand thoroughly our present position, but to predicate the future. Continuing the analogy, we find that one branch of the business sells goods for 3s Gd, ss, or Gs, what other branches succeed in obtaining four or five times the amount for; and that such portions of the business, selling their commodities at low rates, are only kept in existence by the profits accruing from the others that are more skilfully administered. The plain lesson to be learned is that such non-paying establishments should cease to sell; or that their management should be placed in different hands. It will be a moderate estimate if we consider that of the 34,000,000 acres of land unsold in the Middle Island, there still remain 20,000,000 acres of lands that are of ift available and marketable character. This acreage should represent pounds sterling J and ought effectually tend to allay any alarm that may be felt as to our insular solvency. The 2,000,000 acres belonging to the Crown in the North Island will doubtless be, as a rule, land of an digib'e character—at least, Ave should presume s0 —but it is evident at the first glance, the various Provinces in which it is divided have no landed estate to pledge as security for any large amount of money invested, either in railroads or roads. The ultimate solution of this difficulty must be the taxing of large Native holdings, through which railroads and roads run, both for the purpose of their maintenance, and for the bringing into useful occupation land held by such unproductive owners.

Amount Eate Amount Land ret'rovinee. of land per of money maining sold. acre. realised. unsold. Acres. £ s. d. £ Acres. 'Otago 893,000,1 1 1 944,314 12,317,847 Canterbury 078,349 2 0-0 1,305,250 7,817,171 Nelson 725,1)270 7 0 271,810 0,190,980 Southland 510,127 0 19 fi 497,530 2,222.133 Marlboro,. 503,512 0 G 8 108,378 2,480,970 'Westland. 3,324 "5 7 3 17,831 3,011,430 3,314,009 3,265,125 34,055,543

Amount Hate Amount lLand reProvince, of land per of money maining .sold. acre. realised. unsold. Acre*. £ H. d. £ Acres. Auckland. 527.958 0 3 5 90,070 805,001 Taranaki.. 8,30210 5 0 2,088 11,000 H nwkes Bay Norctrn. W el lington 789,128 0 7 4 291,297 1,180,000 1,325,448 384,055 1,990,001