New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, August 2, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 626, 2 August 1851, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Saturday, August 2, 1851.

The New Zealand Company’s Land Claimants Bill will be read a third time to-day in Council and become law. This Bill, as it is one of the most imnortant and interests of a greater number of persons, so it has perhaps occasioned more discussion, than any other ; it has also been submitted to the investigation of a select committee who have examined witnesses and made an elaborate report, and have recommended various alterations and amendments which have been adopted by the Council. We do not intend on the present occasion to enter into the principle of the Bill; we wish to s gest, if it be not too late, that among the many and varied interests, among the moral and equitable rights that have claimed and received consideration and protection from the Council, the interests of one class of claimants at least should not be overlooked or disregarded. We allude to the derivative purchaser of country lands, the country settler who has bought some ten or twenty acres, and who by this Bill will have to pay the same fee, twenty shillings, for his Crown grant as the holder of an original land order. That we may clearly illustrate our meaning and explain the position of this

class, we will state the t Wo ■ our example from the Barae M B take the case of a land owner th ' f^ e W P possessor of two country r S 1 Hutt, of one he has benefit at W and has received com pensatil ‘ g pays for his Crown grant the ail(i R shillings. The other section 11 into lots of ten acres each and g advanced price, perhaps five pou J° ld at *IH to working men. Anxious to be th S possessor of landed property, the d I purchaser pays the purchase mo ite R takes a conveyance of his land at th M ll perhaps of£2. Bnt as the Company I ed no title to their purchasers, theV equally with the original, quired to apply for a Crown grant i*'plete his title. Now we think it i fair that both these cases should be ‘ the same footing, that both parfa?’ be made to pay alike. The original chaser, besides receiving compensation T a moderate fee (an expense he h na

contemplated) for his grant, which J elude several sections. The or owner of a few acres purchased at an? hanced price, and paid for from the of his industry, is compelled, to title, to pay in addition to his former law ex penses the same fee with the owner of L’ dreds of acres. He is taxed to this trona no fault of h'= OVXTm Ixa-U- . , , , , lu repair tlie laches of the New Zealand Company, ■[ their purchasers had received, on choosins their land, a legal title to it, the deriv a fe purchaser’s title would have been complete, He has to pay this sum under an Ordinance passed in 1846, which certainly never con. templated such cases as these to which we allude. Perhaps we may be told by some hon. member as a conclusive answer, the de.

nvative purchasers at Nelson are willing to pay the fee. But Nelson is not the whole of New Zealand, and while we admit no in. justice is done to those who consent to the imposition, since, according to the received maxim, volenti non fit injuria, we must protest on the part of the working men, the purchasers of a few acres in the country districts in the vicinity of Welling, ton, who form a numerous class, against the injustice which will be done to them if the same fee is required on all Crown grants; and we regret to find that while the claims of the absentees have bqpn most liberally considered, while other moral and equitable rights have been regarded and compensated, not one voice has been raised in the Legislative Vvouncil to avert from these country settlers, who by one hon. member have been not inaptly styled the thews and sinews of the colony, the imposition of what we cannot bat consider to be an unjust tax.