THE LAND.

Evening Star, Issue 4109, 28 April 1876, Page 2

THE LAND.

To the Editor

Sir, —Every person imbued with the true interests and progress of Otago, must accord you their heartfelt thanks for the manly and independent stand you have made personally through your leading columns against the selling of large blocks of land by the Provincial Executive. Your conduct, sir, is a striking contrast to the shifty and truculent spirit exhibited by your contemporaries. After reading what transpired at the Waste Land Board yesterday, who will venture to assert conscientiously that Reid, Macandrew, and Co. are the champions of the people, when they would have sacrificed their very birthright (the land) wholesale to speculators, only for the firmness of Messrs Strode, Bastings, and Butterworth, who refused all the applications. The Executive have stultified their political principles on this question as expressed to their constituents, and should therefore resign at Once. We have after all men amongst us, as shown by the action of the gentlemen comprising the Waste Land Board (except Mr

Beid), who are entitled to our everlasting gratitude for saving the Province from such a calamity. Your humble correspondent feels strongly on the matter, and could urge good reasons to show that it would be better for us to pay more taxes (to tide over our difficulties) than part with an iota of our landed estate.—l am, &c., Argus. Dunedin, April 28.