THE FISHING COMPANY IN OTAGO.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 161, 10 December 1874, Page 3

THE FISHING COMPANY IN OTAGO.

The Otago Echo says:—Some few months since the Provincial Government of Otago conceded to a company formed in ptago 2000 acres of land in Dusky Sound for a fishing establishment. The conditions attached to the concession are rigorous, perhaps too much so. They are as follows:—One Shilling per acre per annum to be paid by the grantees for nineteen years, the length of the lease, however, being for two years longer. They are to survey it at their own expense within six months of the time the concession was granted. They have no power to re-let except with the consent of the superintendent. They have no power to purchase, nor a right of pre-emption for so doing. They have not the right to cut for sale even the timber growing on the land they hold. The Otago Waste Lands Board is very .chary of conceding this power. It has gone frantic on the subject of forest conservation. It charges' the saw miller and splitter 20s per acre for the privilege of cutting timber on the waste lands of the Crown. They, are then only leased for a term of three years, when reverting again to the Provincial estate. In such a waste as Dusky Sound it may have been expected that such a concession would have been obtained. The company will probably speedily commence operations. They propose cultivating the eastern trade—exporting dried and cured fish, and bringing sugar and other commodities as return cargo

We wish the company heartily every success. A singular difficulty will crop up uuder this lease. The Provincial Government of Otago has given the company the exclusive right to fish over a certain area of water. It has not the power of so doing. The right is vested in the Admiralty alone, who have not delegated their powers. Dusky Sound is probably the best fishing sound around the shores of New Zealand. Fish curing and exporting ought to pay handsomely here as in other parts of the globe. Our readers will doubtless wish the projectors the success their enterprise merits.