Untitled

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 167, 25 March 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

We insert %6 following extract from tbe Nelson Examiner the more readily fiom the fact of its showing, in a very great degree, what has taken place in this Province of Hawke’s Bay;—only alter a name or two. arid the garment fits as nicely as if measured for.—Ex>. H.B.T .] Hfere is the hard fact, that |th of what was the public estate of the Province has been disposed of, and that fths, comprfsing 7,000,000 acres of land, remain on hand. Apart from other considerations, this statement should be received as proof that the colonization of this portion of the colony was proceeding satisfactorily; and as |ths of the land alienated has been sold within the last 8 years, :t should betoken great activity on the part of the Government, and the presence iu Nelson at this time of a large, industrious, and thriving population. This is the picture which an imperfect acquaintance with the Province, and the administration of its affairs during the time stated, would naturally suggest, but we regret to say the picture is a very false one. Since the Ist of January, 1858, the Land Fund in Nelson has exceed’ ed £220,000, but the money thus received has borne no adequate fruit, either in the introduction and settlement of population upon the land, or in laying open and bringing forward for sale laud in other parts of the province. The real history of our land sales, and the apparent prosperity of the province during the last few years, is told iu a few words. The district of Amuri contained a most inviting block of open grass land, which became highly attractive to sheep-farmers, and the distance from Nelson being too great for the Superintendent, or any member of Government, to visit the district, and acquire a knowledge of their value, they readily took the statements of interested parties as to the quality of the land, and- sold the principal portion of it at prices varying from ss. to 7s. an acre, although some of the .land would have been cheap at £-5 an acre. - The purchasers were well content, getting- the land at such favorable prices, to spare the Government all possible trouble : they made their own arrangements for surveys, asked but little assistance in road-making, and, supplying the treasury as they did year after year with the greater portion of the Provincial income, these gentlemen were regarded by the Government as a most serviceable body. To use a homely expression, “ It is no use crying over spilt milk/’ but we cannot be insensible to the splendid field for colonization offered iu the'Amuri, which .has been allowed to slip through our hands, and to pass into the hands'of those persons, who will be so enriched by its possession that they will not turn it to a tithe of the account of which it is capable;; and for many long years a district, which, would have maintained many thousands of industrious colonists, will be given up to growing wool alone. Had such a settlement as that of New Plymouth been planted 20 years ago in Gore’s Bay, the Amuri would now have been one of the most thriving and densely-populated districts in New Zealand.

If the Government of Nelson, when it resolved on selling the land at Amuri at prices which were certain to insure its ready disposal, had also resolved on investing the funds derived from it in promoting settlement in other parts of the province, a great end would have been achieved, and one which might in some degree have compensated for the sacrifice made ; but the fact it notorious that the Land Fund, the realized expenditure of the Province, has been expended most unprofitably, leaving us, it is true, with 7,000,000 acres of land unsold, but with no roads to open up this vast tract of country for settlement, while some of it remains even unexplored. The position of the province is this: the Government has permitted the sale of all that portiou of the province which required no expenditure on roads to render it accessible; and having dissipated the proceeds of these sales in current expenses, the portion of the estate remaining on hand which requires an outlay to make it accessible, is declared to be valueless, through the want of those means which the sale of the Amuri lands should properly have supplied.—Examiner, March 3.