LAND LAWS IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 55, 10 February 1872, Page 15

LAND LAWS IN NEW SOUTH WALES.

' We learn that New South Wales with its area of 300,000 square, and its population of half a million souls, has found out that its existing land laws have not fulfilled the expectations of their authors, and so the Government proposes to make a clean sweep of the existing statutes and to embody in one act the whole cf the land legislation of the colony. One of the cardinal principles of the bill is free selection before survey, combined with a system of extended credit. The free selector pays one-fourth of his purchase money down. He is not called upon for any farther instalments during the next three years; and at the expiration of that interval he commences the liquidation of the balance by ten annual payments, no charge being made on account of interest. He make take up a " frontage block" of 640 acres at £1 pei 1 acre, and a " back block" of corresponding area at 5s per acre. Within the three years just referred to the selector must effect improvements of the value of £1 per acre on the front, and of that of 7s Gel per acre on the back block ; and he must also habitually reside upon his allotment. But for nonresident selectors a proviso of a somewhat novel character is introduced. In consideration of the residential condition being waived in their favor, they must pay 50 per cent more in the shape of purchase money, and expend a corresponding addition in improvements. Failure to comply with these conditions before the end of three years fvom the date of selection involves the forfeiture of th'e land in all cases. Conditional purchasers under the act of 1871 will have an opportunity of bringing their purchasers under the new law, and the amount they have hitherto paid in the shape of interest to the Crown will be credited to them as a part of* the principal. With respect to what are called " pastoral homesteads," the lessees of Crown lands are to be allowed to purchase not less than 0200, nor more than 10,000 acres, at the rate of one pound per acre for all land within one mile of a water frontage, and five shillings per acre outside of that limit; but in no case is there to be more than one mile of water frontage for every five miles of depth. Similar conditions as to residence is imposed on the pastoral as on the agricultural selector, and his mode of payment is the same; but he is not required to expend more on improvements during the three years than 7s 6d per acre. Where he seeks from exemption from the residential condition he is authorised to obtain it on an additional fifty per cent, on his purchase money, and on the sum he lays out in improvements. We observe that a power of appeal to the Supreme Court or to the Circuit Court of the district is to be allowed to lessees of runs who may be dissatisfied with the Minister of Land. The administration of the public estate is not to be placed above, but is to be subject to the law.