SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION, AND ITS RESULTS.—LAND SALES, &c.

New Zealander, Volume 3, Issue 161, 15 December 1847, Page 2

SYSTEMATIC COLONIZATION, AND ITS RESULTS.— LAND SALES, &c.

The different systems upon which land has been granted and sold in the several colonies of Great Britain", have varied almost from year to year, during the last 10 or 12 years. The consequence of these continual changes have been, lhat frequently not only great disappointments, hut also heavy losses have been occasioned to parties emigrating, and it has even happened that individuals who had left England under one set of regulations, have found to their astonishment on their arrival in the colony they had selected for their future residence, that a totally different set of regulations with respect to the disposal of land, had been established. This state of things, there can he no doubt, has checked to a considerable extent the employment of capital in the colonies ; it has also tended materially to check emigration itself, for large as has been the increase in the numbers of emigrants within the last few years, there can be little doubt that the frequent alterations in the regulations respecting the purchase and sale of lands in the British colonies, have prevented the emigration of many persons who might otherwise have been most valuable acquisitions to the Colonies, In the case of those most important and valuable dependencies, namely the Australasian Colonies, a set of regulations was promulgated

in 1827 with regard to the conditions upon which Grants of land were to be made, as sales of land, by the government were not then in practice. These regulations wore not however confirmed, although many persons emigrated to those colonies in the "belief that they were in full force. In 1 828, these regulations were entirely changed, and the principles on which grants of land were allotted, underwent a complete alteration. In 1831 the Earl of Ripon and Lord Howick, at that time Under Secretary for the Colonies, substituted the principle of the sale of lands, fo l ' that of free grants, and this principle was at the time strongly objected to. j The following were the sums raised in the Australian colony (New South Wales) from the land fund, from 1830 to 1840 inclusive— In 1830, the land fund amounted t0.. £1,896 In 1831 it had increased to»» 3,618 In 1832 13,683 In 1833" 26,272 In 1834 '. 43,489 In 1835 « 89,475 In 1836 • 108,558 In 183? • 127,866 In 1838 '. t..... 114,654 In 1839 * 160,833 In 1840 339,738 In the year 1841, however, a great falling off took place in the amount of the land (und and the gross amount is officially, stated at ss. 7d ; being a diminution of no less thau £299,626 on the amount received in the preceding year ! The corresponding expenditure for emigration, surveys, and sales of land, &c, was not less than £382,278. The Governor moreover stated that while the land revenue for the year 184-2, amounted for the half year to only, the expenditure under the head of Crown land fund in the same time, had not been less than £104,800, thus leaving a deficit upon the half year of no less than 1 It should be observed that in the year 1840, a new principle was introduced by the authorities at the Colonial Office, and instead of keeping up the practice of sales by Auction, at a minirnun upset price, a minimum fixed price of Twenty Shillings per acre, was ordered ; this price being at that time considered the " sufficient fixed price" for waste land in the colonies in question. This system, however, did not seem to answer the expectations of those in Office, for in August, 1841, they returned to the system of sales by Auction, which had been abandoned in 1840 ! All these changes, there can be little doubt have been extremely detrimented to the interests of the colonists. Regulations liable to such constant change must have failed to inspire that confidence in the public mind, which it is so desirable to establish and maintain on a subject so important. When to this it is added, that in one colony the sales by auction were in force, whilst in another perhaps immediately adjoining it, the system of a fixed piice was retained, it must be evident that such a system was totally irreconcileable with 1 commou sense or common leason. 1\ the Bill introduced into Parliament by Lord Stanley, during the Session of 1842, for the regulation of land sales in the colonies of Australasia and New Zealand, the principle purposed by his Lordship is not solely tha. ol sales by auction, nor yet that of sales at ' a fixed price, but the piinciple is one which was recommended by the Committee which sat upon the affairs of South Australia in iB4l, and is to the effect that, the several colonies being divided according to districts, there should be a certain portion of land brought continually into the market, and a certain upset price below which no land should be sold ; and that at certain fixed sdlea,the lands should be divided into three distinct classes for instance first those fixed for the site of towns ; second, those which had an an artificial value, from being t in the immediate neighbourhood of towns ; and third,the ordinary country lots,and his Lordship further proposed that they should be dealt with on different principles. It was enacted by the provisions of the Bill that the two first descriptions , of land, namely the " town lots," and the "suburban lots/ should never be sold except by auction ; and that of the " country lots,'* no land should bfi" 6old but what had been submitted to auction, and that the land which remained unsold at the time, of the periodical sales, should be liable to be sold in the interim at the original upset price, without waiting for ihe next periodical sale. This Act " for regulating the survey and sales of land belonging to the Crown in the Australian Colonies and New Zealand" has now been in force for a period of Five years, and it is hardly too much to assert of it, that it has entirely failed to realize the expectations which were formed of it. The following are the sums realized from the sale of land in New South Wales since 1841. In 1842 the land fund had fallen to £18,312 In 1843 12,205 In 1844 9,174 In 1845 18,025 In 1846 27,700 From this statement it appears that the sum realized by the sale of land in 1846 was less than one -fourth of the sums realized from the

same source in 1837. This. result is more striking when it is observed that in 1837 the population of the colony amounted only to 85,000 persons, while in 1846 the population amounted to upwards of 196,0001 Thus, by unwise legislation has the permanent settlement been retarded in proportion as the demand for it has increased, and thus is the fallacy that land can be made saleable at the minimum upset price of 20s. per acre, by the introduction of population, practically refuf.d.

" Murder will out," is a proverb as old as it is gratifying to our feelings of justice. There is little doubt but that the mystery connected with the late daring outrage on the North Shore, will be shortly cleared away. The Natives are, if possible, more anxious than the Europeans, that the foul stain, which they feel must at present, more or less, affect them generally, should be erased by the conviction of the guilty parties, It appears that. Taria is actively engaged, with other Chiefs, in bringing the criminals to justice; and some influential Natives are now awaiting 1 , in Auckland, the return of a party in search of Naniuka, one of, the Waikatos, who is more thai, suspected by the Natives to be the murderer. Indeed so anxious are some of our neighboring tribes to take him, that they are determined, should he not be quietly given up, wherever he may be hiding himself, to seize him vi et armis.

MAiis.—The mail by the E teita Joseph, for Syd- " nfiy and England, will close on Fiiduy next at three o'clock, and the is advert'ued to sail on the same day. 1 his beautiful little barque was built by Mr A'exander Newton, oh the Manning River, for Mr. M. Joseph;, of Sydney. She measure* 264 tons— depth of hold 15 feet— beam 25J feet, 86 leet keel, and 100 feet over i all. Mr. Joseph, we under*tand, hasalio a brig being built by the lame person of aHout 160 tom burthen, which, if inducement offers, he intends for the Auckland trade.

Programme of the performance of (he Band of the 58th Regiment, for Thursday, 16th instant, at 4 p. m., on the space of ground in front of the Council Chamber. Orerture, "The Fair Maid of Perth . . . Waddeil. Cay., Opera " Beatrice de Teuda." Belini. Cay., Opera, " Edwardo c Cristina,'' » . • Rossini. Waltz, " A. Deux terns," Jullien. Cay., Opera, " Belsario," , ' . . Donizetti. Quadrille, " The Phantom Daacers," .... Jullien.