New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, August 25, 1849.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 424, 25 August 1849, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, August 25, 1849.

We have republished froni the Ne* > Zealand Journal the first part of the regulations of the New Zealand Company for-the sale and lease of lands in the Southern settlements. These regulations are divided into four parts. The first part describes the extent of lands possessed by the Company in the different' settlements^ and the privileges conferred upon it by the Government with reference to the disposal of Crown lands, and the exercise of the Crown's right of pre-emption from the natives. These lands the Company propose to sell in los, and to grant, licenses for the pasturage of the una propriated portions of the land within the different settlements, and also of those lands not included in any settlement which have been placed by the agreement with the Government under the Company's control. And that no source of profit may be neglected, no circumstance, however trifling, from which emolument is to be derived, left withe ut being duly turmd to account, separate licenses are to be issued for- cutting timber, collecting flax, and raising minerals. The terms on which land is in future to be disposed of in the settlements of Wellington, Nelson and New Plymouth, (refeiring under the head of Wellington more particularly t o Wanganui) are £12:10 for a town allotment of a quarter of an acre, and £50 for a rural section or allotment of twenty-five acres. In other words the town land in the above named settlements is valued at' £50an acre, and the country land at £2 per acre. The upset price of the town land must, we suppose, be understood to mean the average \alue of the unsold andsin each town, in the hands of the New Zealand Company, and in this view, it is hardly necessary to observe that the sufficient price affixed by the Company is greatly above their average value. The same remark applies with still greater force to the upset price of the country lan<\ What inducements or arguments may influence the unsuspecting faith of those purchasers. in the mother country, who pay for what they have not seen, we are unable to divine, but in the colony, where the settler has the opportunity of examining before hand what he is desirous of purchasing, the attempt to raise the average price of country land without roads or improvements to 40s. per acre is a virtual prohibition of its sale. That the Company or its Agents may not be without/* criterion for affixing a market value to the waste lands for which they are " desirous r of finding purchasers, we may mention that the prices bbtained for such of the compensation land of 150 acie3 granted to the purchasers , of preliminary sections-. jjs have been sold vary from £33 to,£4oG— ror from 4s. sd. to 13s. 4 d. per acre.j' Thete ,se(pHons will be given oat in a district ffas 3 -

sessing more than average natural fertility and other advantages, and considerably nearer to Wellington than Wanganui. There can be little doubt then that the Company will find the price they have affixed to their unsold lands more than sufficient, in otfjer words, that it is more they can reasonably expect to obtain.

The Moid of J ria arrived yesterday from Otago, which she left on Monday last. The Scotia sailed the same day fcr Waikowaiti and Wellington, but will probably meet with some detention in consequence of having sprung her bowsprit.