LAND ON DEFERRED PAYMENTS IN CANTERBURY.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1307, 28 May 1878, Page 2

LAND ON DEFERRED PAYMENTS IN CANTERBURY.

The following remarks on the above subject, referred to in our leading article, appeared in the Peess of May 6th : We publish iu another column a letter from Mr Jebson on the subject of the Waste Lands Act. lie seems to think that under this Act the deferred payment system cannot be introduced in Canterbury till May, 1882; the proviso contained in the 76th clause operating, in his opinion, as a complete bar to any action under the deferred payment clauses until the expiration of that period. As there may be other persons who share the same impression, it will be well to explain briefly how the case really stands. Mr Jebson is under a misapprehension arising from a confusion as to the meaning of the term “ pastoral lands.’ 5 For the purposes of the third part of the Act, the words “ pastoral lands ” are to be understood in a special sense. They do not simply mean (as Mr Jebson supposes) land held under pastoral license, but—as defined in the 75th section of the Act —“ include only such lands as shall be classified in manner herein provided as lands not being suited for agriculture.” The process of determining what lands are to be considered pastoral is as follows: The Governor is empowered to appoint three Commissioners in any district, of whom the Chief Surveyor must be one, whose duty it will be to report on any rural lands in the district which they may be instructed to examine, and to furnish a description of the boundaries of such land, classified by them as agricultural and pastoral land respectively. The description will be published in the “ Gazette“ and ” —the Act continues—“ for the purposes of tins portion of this Act the land described in such publication as pastoral land, or such portions thereof as the Governor may determine, may be dealt with as herein provided for the sale and disposal of pastoral land;” that is to say, it may be sold by auction in blocks of from 500 to 5000 acres at an upset price of £1 per acre. There is a proviso that “ the sections in this Act referring to the disposal of pastoral land on deferred payments shall not be applied to any land in the land district of Canterbury until the first day of May, 1882.” But this restriction is confined to the particular sections we have just quoted. It has no reference whatever to the general provisions contained in the preceding clauses (from the 53rd to the 74th, inclusive) as to the sale of land on deferred payment. Nor are the 75th and following clauses intended to supersede the foregoing general enactments, but only as an addition to them. In fact, at present, these clauses are practically not in force. There is no pastoral land, as the term is used in the Act, either in Canterbury or anywhere else, because there has been no classification ; and there may never be any, if the Governor is not advised to exercise the power conferred on him by the 75th section. Whenever a classification has been made, the Governor may set apart any of the land gazetted as pastoral —that is, non-agricultural—for sale at £1 per acre by auction. But this applies only to the particular land so gazetted, and otherwise leaves intact the general power to set aside land for sale on deferred payment conferred on the Governor by the 53rd section. In short, the Governor has two powers; one, to proclaim any land in the colony, not being town land, open for sale on deferred payment at an advance of 50 per cent, upon the ordinary price ; the other, to have the rural land in any district classified, and to offer any part of such as may be declared nonagricultural for sale by auction at £1 per acre. The time and extent of the exercise of these powers is left optional; except that, in Canterbury, the latter authority cannot bo acted on before May, 1882, But the postponement of this particular method of dealing with a certain class or land does not affect the larger and prior right. There is nothing in the Act to prevent the Governor from at once proclaiming all the unsold land iu Canterbury open for sale under the deferred payment system. Mr Jebson’s impression to the contrary is caused, as we said before, by a mistake as to the meaning of the term “pastoral land.” As used in this part of the Act, it does not signify land held under pastoral license, but land declared non-agricultural by the Commissioners. The classification of the land, and the disposal under the 77th section of such as may be declared pastoral, cannot take place in Canterbury before May Ist, 1882. But it is not the general power of selling land under the deferred payment system that has been thus held in abeyance, but solely tho special power of selling land officially described as pastoral in blocks of from 500 to 5000 acres at £1 per acre.