The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 10, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3809, 10 May 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, MAY 10, 1875.

The Superintendent was fully warranted in asserting, as he did in his address to the Provincial Council, that, there is a demand in nearly every part of the Province for land for settlement. , Every district is urging it and nearly every newspaper one takes up repeats the cry for “ more laud.” Mount Ida has already petitioned; Mount Benger is about to do so. In the latter district, we are told by our Tuapeka contemporary, every section of any value for agricultural, or even grazing purposes, hitherto thrown open has been greedily taken up, and the same would be the result if two or three thousand acres more were open for occupation. That the demand for land in the Tuapeka district has in nowise abated, is evidenced by the scene that took place m the L«wrenoe Qbnrt on WdiJneriffiavlast. When the ue'fjjff'ett pajjforent eetitixMS in the Heriot Hundred Were balloted fffr' From noon until late that day the Court’house was crowded with applicants, many of whom came frofii other parts of the Province. The scene is said to have had all the excitement of a gambling saloon, and as number after number was drawn from the oox, the expressions of excitement or pleasure, mortification or happiness, were curiously alternated in the countenances of interested parties, according to the nearness or distance of the number drawn from the winning or highest number. In connection, however, with the balloting at Lawrence, there is a matter that requires explanation. One of the applicants, named M ’Kinlay, was the successful balloter for two sections, and when it transpired that by the first draw he became possessed of the hundred acres allowed by the Act to any individual holder, oWeetion was made,-and to® District Land Officer was called upon to disallow the second application. What followed ? w

Tho objection was not sustained by the Dig* trict Land Officer, as the Waste Land Board had instructed him to take all the applications. Mr Holmes also pointed out the injustice done his clients by their being debarred fiom the a for more than 200 acres, _ whilst Mr M‘J£inlay and others were permitted to do so. Mr Carew remarked that, receiving his instructions from the Waste Land Board, he could not interfere. Clearly the Act has been evaded: and Mr J. C Brown would be doing many of his constituents a service were lie to inquire how th<f Waato Laad£Board canao to issue so illegal an instruction to Mr Carew, as they appear to have done, if the statement of our Tuapeka contemporary is correct.