Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1863.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 101, 27 March 1863, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. NAPIER, FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1863.

It has been oar misfortune to read a vast amount of twaddle of one sort and another, and which has been in a measure forced

upon us in our capacity of exp .under of the policies of Governments, to the, but fur our endeavors in that direction, otherwise unenlightened multitude, but we have never yet found, amongst all the incalculable mass of stuff which we have committed to our waste paper basket, any one tiling which struck us so palpably as bearing the stamp of utter “ rot,’ - (to use a forcible and favorite expression peculiar to one of our Provincial dignitaries,) as an article which appeared in the Herald a short lime back, and which article, after going through sundry prefatory revolutions, comes at last to the groat point at issue, and which point is, that out of the residue —the lucked bones —the mere attenuated skeleton—of the lauds of this Province, there yet remains a spot where.ui could he located a colony of German Immigrants ! ! What next ? A Cvdony of German Immigrants !! Surely we have our poor, dear, mother-tongue sumcieniiy maltreated as it is by' our friend over the way. without getting out an express Company to still further add to the peachy indicted on the children of Noah for (hmr adventurous attempts on the mysteries of Heaven, fur we cannot at the moment see to what purpose this great influx of Germans would tend, other than an addition to the confusion of tongues which already prevails. This matter of population is a little beyond a joke, and therefore we notice it. If there was any laud at all in the Province in the Lands of the Government fit for the pur-

pose of settlement, we are of opinion that the wisest and most prudent course to adopt would be to give the opportunity of occupying it to some of our own countrymen. There are, as is but too well known, many, many thousands of worthy and excellent people, at present rather troubled by want of elbow-room in the Old Country, who would be glad enough to come out to this new country if they could get land, or had and other inducement held out to them to -

venture over. But as matters stand at present, although we have 700,000 acres of land, there are not, we without hesitation affirm, any 100 acres in an undivided block, but. what our Crown Land Commissioner would call ss. laud, and that, therefore, it is quite out of the question, when we add to the nature of the land the almost hopeless impossibility of getting to it, to suppose that any land yet remains which we could offer to immigrants, with ever so remote a chance of their taking advantage of that offer. That population is exactly what is wanted is the very thing which everybody says ; but that that desideratum is to be got at by the introduction of Germans, without any very definite notion of what to do with them when got, appears to us ridiculous. If the Herald bad thought of this matter of population for Hawke’s Bay at the time when that paper was the sole representative of public opinion in this Province, and during which time there was abundance of fine land whereon a few thousands of men might with advantage have been settled, all Would have been well.

or at all events liis respectable conscience would never trouble him with certain misgivings as to whether he had done his duty by the place or not. It is all very well now to turn round and call out for population at this the eleventh hour, when we have no room to put it in if we could get it. We should have taken advantage of the opportunity when we had land to sell, and have received a healthy and vigorous population, nourishing and prosperous. How is it that’ the Crown Land Commissioner for instance has secured for his shave of the spoil a tract of country which of itself would have been nearly sufficient to have formed a tolerablesized settlement ? How is this ? we ask. as there no need ot making arrangements lor or ot keeping in view the necessities of introducing a population then ? 'We think there was, and a very great necessity too 1 That was the time—the time when the iUeanoe flats were sold for a mere son g. Then we should have laid our plans for securing population ; nay, more, if the Herald had been honestly alive to tlie interests of the Province, instead of only actuated by a mere pecuniary motive, he would have strenuously advocated a course with regard to these lands entirely different to that which has been carried out ; and then that paper “ of acknowledged respectability 1 ’ might with an honest heart have said, “ We at least advised and supported measures which would have secured some portion of the land from spoliation.” What more easy than for the Government of the new Province of Hawke's P>ay to have introduced immigrants to settle down here, and have provided those immigranis with suitable lands ? How is it we ask, Unit instead of this Province being at this moment possessed of an annual income derivable from her lands (without reference to any sales at all) of .£50,000, she is in a state of bankruptcy, or at all events, is so very little removed from that stale that she is entirely used up. The answer to this question is this—the abuse of the Land Reyu ations, and the irresponsible administration of those regulations. There, that is the cause of the present state of Denmark, a cause the effect of which was as plainly foreseen as that the Provincial Government of Hawke’s 1 ay will come to an end more quickly than it came to a beginning Can any one of our readers account for the extraordinary fact that land in this Sir George Grey may go on with his absurd and childish plans as to the manage-

Province has been sold for ss. and 10s., or say at the Very most (and then only on special and very particular occasions) for £1 an acre, and that no sonner is the public

sale completed than that the land rose at least from 5)3 to 10)) par cent, in value. If land can be sold by a private individual for .£5 or £lO an acre, what is the reason why it was not sold by the Government for that or a proportionate sum, and the money thus raised judiciously spent on good and substantial public works ? ment of the Maories, and the Hawke's Bay Herald may with equal inconsistency support those weak and foolish plans, and may further occasionally relieve himself with a small burst of second-hand patriotism about population for “ Hawke’s Bay,” and all that sort of thing ; hut we say, in defiance of Sir George Grey’s “ policy” and of the Herald's patriotism, that such are the natural and indisputable advantages of New Zealand, and of this Province in particular, as a field for hnmigra l ton, that if it was not for the stuiu-hling-hmck which such Governors and such newspapers prove in the way of the a Ivancement of the country, this Province would go along fast enough regardless of them and of the Laud Regulations. New Zealand would very soon place herself on a level with any other of the colonies if she had the advantage of a firm and wise Government, and a free, enlightened, and properly and disinterestedly conducted Press. But so long as Sir G. Grey is the Governor, and the Hawke's Bay Herald is to he considered “ a paper of acknowledged respectability,” though the necessaries of life hung upon trees, and although the ground brought forth spontaneous crops of luxuries, still would this island remain a wilderness, and still and for ever would the Ideating of sheep and lowing of cattle be the only sound which would greet the ear of the lonely traveller.