The Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FEIDAY, JUNE 12, 1885. OUE LAND LAWS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume X, Issue 12, 12 June 1885, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) The Oldest Daily Newspaper on the West Coast. FEIDAY, JUNE 12, 1885. OUE LAND LAWS.

Many of bur contemporaries have been exercised at one period or another with regard to" the question of the insufficient, incomprehensible, and seemingly incongruous and irreconcilable nature of the existing land laws of the Colony. One newspaper m the South hazards the opinion that if the expressions of dissatisfaction emanating from all countries, and especially from those under the sceptre of Great Britain, may be counted for anything, the world is as far off anything like 4 satisfactory method of dealing with, land as ever it was. There can be no doubt that the question attracts more public attention, and appears,' to be encompassed with greater difficulties m this Colony than m older countries, for not a day passes but people can be heard bemoaning the! manifold defects, and oppressive tendency of the legislation with reference to land, notwithstanding the fact that for years past there has been one continuous agitation for the reform of those very laws, now allrged to be so full of imperfection and so calculated to retard the progress of the country. A contemporary suggests that were an Act passed prohibiting any person from acquiring land unless he could satisfactorily prove that he had capital, experience, and brains to put into ; it, it would go a long way to solve present difficulties. That, however, would be regarded as such an interference with the liberty of the subject, and such, a prying into his.private affairs, as would be resented by such a decromalic community as ours. Still it is little* short of cruelty to encourage and assist men to settle on land who are no more fittted to be farmers than they are to be apostles, and who start work upon a big section, with no more capital than would be required to set up a front garden on a suburban terrace. From the Bruce Herald we learn that a petition for reform of the land laws, prepared by Mr J. A. Connkll, is now being largely signed by deferredpayment and freehold farmers and other agricultural settlers. The petition sets forth that the Land Act has been altered and amended m various ways tcT the detriment of settlers, more particularly certain portions pf the Act of 1884, which are said to be calculated to altogether deter men of intelligence from settling on the lands of the Colony. The petition then prays for the insertion of no less than, eleven provisions m an amended Bill which our contemporary understands will be introduced during the coming session. The amendments are of a very comprehensive character. They comprise (inter alia) — Capitalisation of payments after fulfilment of conditions for twelve months ; the issue of a Crown Grant at the expiration of three years, with the amount of capitalised debt endorsed, to operate as a first mortgage to the Crown, unti l the whole of the interest and debt is paid ; the abolition of sale by tender and substitute of the ballot or auction system, or if the tender system is maintained and m cases where there is only one tenderer, that party be to entitled to the land at the upset or reserve price. It is also proposed that the capitalisation system shall be extended to holders of pastoral deferred payment licenses. These are the salient and more im-. portant features of the proposed new law. There is nothing very sensational about them. The reform they aim at is not of a very drastic character, and we are inclined to be of opinion that should an amended Act be passed embodying these suggestions, the Land Law reformers will soon be to the fore with further agitation, and the whole process will have to be gone over again. However, with such a liberal, or rather a radical, premier as Mr Stout, and such a thorough-paced Conservative as Sir Julius VoGEL,to act as drag upon him, the impulse of the formerj combined with the shrewdness of the latter may. accomplish something; < At any rate, if they can achieve a new law of some sort, it will at least silence the malcontents for awhile, and give the country relief until such time as they can marshal their forces for another attack.