THE LAND FUND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 229, 29 January 1876, Page 12

THE LAND FUND.

The statement of receipts and expenditure of the land fund for the December quarter is published in the Gazette. The total was £220,210 Bs. 7d. made up as follows : Land fund £171,206 Confiscated lands 45,075 Native lands 3,929 Looking at the distribution of this large sum among the provinces, we have some interesting facts, which supply a key to the agitation in certain quarters in favour of provincial institutions. Thus :

These sums were paid to the several provinces for local purposes, and a glance at the distribution will show how very unequal the present fiscal system is. It is quite clear that Canterbury and Otago, by the conversion of the public estate into money, are in a position to push on with improvement works without resorting to local taxation, which would be impossible for any of the other provinces to do. This is clearly an anomaly which must' be removed, and the sooner the question is fairly met and settled the

better it will be for New Zealand. The gold duty and goldfields revenue for the quarter amounted to £29,931 lis. 7d., of which Otago contributed £9843 14s. 7d. The Auckland returns are small under this head, inasmuch as the receipts from miners' rights go to the Maori owners of the land. Thirty thousand pounds, in round numbers for a quarter, is a very heavy tax on the gold mining industry of the country. This will be all the more seriously felt, inasmuch as the past quarter has been an unusually dull one on the goldfields generally.

LAND EEVKNUE. Auckland £14 5 0 Taranaki .. .. 2,425 5 1 Wellington 7,271 IP 10 Hawke's Bay 656 5 10 Nelson 2,840 19 2 Marlborough 130 10 7 Canterbury 4S.681 15 2 Westland 1,063 11 7 Otago S2.016 4 10