New Zealand Spectator AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, April l2, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 594, 12 April 1851, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, April l2, 1851.

—„„g xxuuMieu Grants have been received from Nelson for lands in chat settlement, which are ready for the signature of the Governor-in-Chief. They are made up into ten books, and comprise titles to town and country lands, including derivative as well as original purchasers. The former, instead of a lengthened conveyance from the original land-owner, in each case receives his title to the portion of the town acre or country .section he has purchased direct from the Crown. The expedition and business-like manner with which these grants have been prepared are mainly owing to the

facilities offered to the Government by Mr. Dillon Bell, the Company’s Resident Agent at Nelson, and to the admirable manner in which he has managed his department. All the details connected with the transfers and sub-division of each section of land have been so carefully registered that the task of preparing the grants has been comparatively ■easy. To shew the number of grants required, we may mention that each original purchaser in Nelson is entitled to four, without including the grant for Compensation land, viz., a grant for his town acre, for his suburban land, for his country section, and for a quarter of an acre in the town of Waitohi: of course all grants about which any question is likely to be raised will be reserved for examination by the Commissioner. That the Nelson settlers are in a position to receive their grants so much earlier than the Wellington land purchasers is to be attributed to the assiduity evinced by Air. Bell, and his ready co-operation with the Government in preparing the grants. His conduct affords the most striking and honorable contrast to the course pursued by Mr. Fox in this settlement, who has thrown every obstacle in the way of the government by withholding the books, registers, and plans of the New Zealand Company, and has occasioned a considerable expense in fresh surveys as well as delay in issuing the grants to the owners of land, who are put to this serious inconvenience and loss solely because Mr. Fox chose to take advantage of his position to throw difficulties in the way of the Government, and embarrass, as far as he had the power, the final settlement of the Sand question.