The New-Zealander. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1862.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1715, 16 August 1862, Page 3

The New-Zealander.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, AUGUST 16, 1862.

Be Just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, pnd Truth's.

The schooner Vistula, from Wellington, arrived iu the Manukau Harbour yesterday after a rapid passage. She brings no mail, and our reporter failed to obtain the only two copies of local journals which were said to be on board. Rumours of Ministerial arrangements were immediately in circulation, of so vaguo and improbable a character that, in the absonco of positive information, we* think it not desirable to give them further currency.

tive claimants who have actually got the land being given wo shall probably obtain at a glance the mot dc Venigme which has puzzled strangers, and in recent days confounded legislative bodies in this Colony. The Land Claims Commission has now been sitting since 1856. What avo discern most clearly in the report is that the thing is not yet over. Everybody declared in 1856 that the Act of that session was to bo imal ; yet in 1858 there was a special extension, and in 1861 the House of Representatives was nearly entrapped into an undoing of all that had been already accomplished

m the way of satisfying the rapacity of the great land sharks, and into a reopening a deux hattans of the whole question. What raa 7 done now, in the present state of parties at Wellington, cannot safely be predicted. Wo arc unwilling, before wo have reprinted this report, to enter upon any special criticism of it; wo must however say that, generally, we do not like it; there is throughout a manifest straining at impartiality, which rightly or wrongly—and wrongly we hope it may be conveys to our mind the impression that there is something or somebody to bo covered or protected, and that all that might, or perhaps ought, to have been said has not

been said. We content ourselves, therefore, with extracting a summary of the information conveyed by the report, and a single quotation illustrative of the “ system” : 1. The total number ol Claims of all classes was 1376. 2. There were 1050 Old Land Claims. 3. There were 250 Pre-emptive Claims. 4. There were 58 Claims not belonging to the other two series. 5. There were 18 Half-caste Claims. 6. The whole extent claimed by all classes was 10,322,453 acres. 7. The greater part of the land was bought from 1837 to 1839. 8. The value of the payments to natives amounted to £95,215. 9. The total amount of Fees, See., paid to the Government was £13,179. 10. The Payment and Fees together amounted to £108,394. 11. The extent of acreage Surveyed was 474,146 acres.

12. The value of these survevs was in round numbers £23,000. 13. The Fees, Payments to Natives, and Surveys, were together £131,000. 14. The land therefore (in the gross) averaged a cost of ss. 6d. per acre. 15. The total quantity of land awarded or granted is 292,475 acres. 16. The quantity in Old Land Claims is 267,175 acres. 17. The quantityjto Pre-emptive Claims is 25,300 acres. 18. The total sum paid in Scrip, Money, or Debentures, is £109,289. 19. The Scrip issued by Governor Fiteroy amounted to £91,510. 20. The Money and Debentures granted by Governor Grey amounted to £8,467. 21. The Scrip issued by me has amounted to £8,932. 22. The Surplus land reverting to the Crown amounts to 204,000 acres. 23. The unproclaimcd lands in the North amount to 50,000 acres. 24. The whole quantity available therefore now, is 254,000 acres.

Those who are acquainted with the early history of Auckland know that almost the whole of the land in the district of the City . West and in tho suburbs was thrown away in 'a vain attempt to extinguish old land claims, and to satisfy the claimants. Governor Pitzroy gave them scrip to tho extent of .£91,510 15s. With this scrip our town and suburban lauds were purchased ; its market price was " one shilling and a pot of beer" per pound. The value, at this hour, of the land which was bought with that scrip will not fall much short of a million sterling. Of the quid pro quo which tho Government sometimes received for the scrip, the following is a sample : In Hokianga claims alone tho scrip issued was upwards of £32,000, while all tho land which I could

recover there for the Crown fifteen years afterwards, including not merely the lands exchanged by the claimants but a considerable extent which had never been before a Commissioner at all, was 15,446 acres. An instance or the great misconception that often existed as to the area of the claims, may bo given in the case of those situate in the Orira Valley at Ilokianga, one of which (that of William and Francis White) has at various times been the subject of much public notice. In the Orira claims Governor Fitzßoy granted £6,099 scrip to William White, .£250 to J. Marmon, £1,825 to A. Thomson, and £I,OOO to J. Anderson. I had the valley surveyed, taking in the land up to the top of the hills and every aero comprised in the original boundaries, and the contents of the whole were only 3,871 acres ; of which 1,280 had to be granted to Francis White (or rather to his assigns), leaving 2,591 acres for the public, to represent £9,174 of scrip given 15 years before. And inasmuch as all the other grants of scrip for Orira Valley claims were made at dates anterior to the issue of scrip in the claim of W. and F. White, it follows that if the valley had been surveyed at the time and the Government had taken 3,075 acres first to repay themselves for the scrip issued in the other claims, there would have remained only 796 acres to meet the liability of 1,280 acres to Francis White, and there would have been nothing at all to represent the £6,099 scrip issued to William White.

THE LAND CLAIMS SETTLEMENT. The Land Claims Commissioner has presented to the General Assembly a report, of which we have obtained a copy, but the “ returns appended” have either not yet been printed or have not been forwarded to us. For that reason wo abstain for the present from publishing the document now before us. The real history of the Lands Claims settlement agitation and the source and object of all the recent legislation upon this subject Avill, or ought to be found in the returns. We want to know, and that the public shall know also, who the individuals are who really have had the longest fingers m this exceedingly rich pie; wo want to know who have actually got the lands acquired, or supposed to have been acquired, by the original purchasers, and in whose favour the grants have been made by the Commissioner, and thus to know how many ox those persons whose wrongs have been so artistically paraded for years, the old land claimants, have in their own persons or in their amilies reaped any benefit from the sympathy which has been worked upon in their behalf, or have profited by the generosity or justice ot the Assembly. The names of the deriva-