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New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 637, 10 September 1851, Page 4

[From the Government Gazette, September 6.]

xiji Address to the Crown oy tue juegislative Council, praying for the adoption of a uniform system in the disposal of the Waste Lands of the colony. (Laid before the Council, July 26, 1851.)

May it please Your Majesty,— We, your Majesty’s most loyal and dutiful subjects, the Members of the Legislative Council of New Zealand, in Council assembled, humbly solicit your Majesty’s gracious attention to a matter of the highest importance to the prosperity of your Majesty’s colony of New Zealand.

The subject we allude to is the disposal of your Majesty’s demesne lands in these islands. In transmitting to' the Governor of New Zealand the Australian Waste Lands Act of 1842, your Majesty’s then Secretary of State for the Colonies alluded with much truth and force to the “protracted discussions which had taken place respecting the settlement of waste lauds in the Australian colonies ; to the frequency with which the system had been changed, the complaints to which this mutability of purpose had given rise ; to the experiments which in the gradual progress of experience may have been not imprudently hazarded, even though in the result such experiments were found to disappoint the hopes of their authors and to the accumulation, consequent upon all this, of a large body both of theoretical and practical knowledge of which it was then proposed to gather the fruits.’’ Lord Stanley then declared that “ the bill in question had been passed into a law with scarcely a dissentient voice in either House of Parliament ; that be had no reason to suppose that the general propriety of its provisions was disputed by any persons in this country to whose judgment .on such topics any particular authority was due; and that he trusted he might with no unreasonable confidence anticipate important advantages from that enactment, both as respected the general interests of the empire at large and the local interests of the Australian nrnyinces of the British Crown. He then particularizes one in especial of the benefits calculated to ensue in these words ; “Of those advantages not the least important will be found in the guarantee at length given for stability and consistency of purpose in the administration of the land and tbe land revenues ©f the Crown in .New Holland, and; the adjacent islands. It is of course impossible that the system now established should be changed by any authority but that of Parliament. Her Majesty’s Government have had no difficulty in advising the Queen thus to relinquish a power which experience has shewn to be not unattended with the risk of immature and precipitate resolutions..

In these sentiments we beg respectfully to assure your Majestyof our entire concurrence. In the hopes so reasonably excited in the breast of your Majesty’s then Secretary of State, we believe the settlers of New Zealand fully participated, and looked forward With equal confidence to the advantages to be secured by the act in question. But it is with great regret we feel ourselves compelled to declare to your Majesty that the benefits, which the relinquishment by your Majesty of the power of administering the land and land revenues alluded to was calculated to produce, have not accrued to this colony; that tbe recurrence of the very evils pointed out by Lord Stanley, and to prevent which your Majesty so graciously resigned that power, has not been precluded ; but that occasion has eVen been afforded thereby for the admission of othei evils of even a graver character, not anticipated when the Australian Waste Lands Act was passed. This unfavorable result of your Majesty’s benevolent intentions is, in our opinion, to be attributed to the fact that Parliament has adopted the course of delegating the power relinquished by yolit Majesty to various bodies of your Majesty’s subjects, who from many Circumstances cannot be made sufficiently responsible for its exercise, and over whom it is difficult to establish the control necessary to secure the most beneficial administration of the funds it entrusts them with.

Now, the evils which actual experience has hitherto shewn to be the result of this delegation of the power given to Parliament, consist in the virtual reproduction of the old vacillation and inconsistency in tbe disposal of the public land ; of undue facilities for its acquisition existing in some parts of the country simultaneously with extreme and impolitic festrictions thereupon in other pans; of extensive and rapid fluctuations in the market value of land ; of consequent uncertainty and hazard in the operations of those who undertake its occupation and culture ; of the most profuse and lavish expenditure of the land funds; and of the contraction and imposition upon the resources of tbe colony of heavy liabilities in compensation of these to whom tbe results of the experiments indulged in have proved unsatisfactory ; liabilities incurred without the consent in some cases, or even knowledge of the Colonial Government or the colonial public, who are so greatly interested in the revenues thus appropriated by anticipation or expended with no adequate return. In addition to these evils the exclusive systems of colonization involve the new evil of tbe virtual imposition of disabilities upon numbers of your Majesty’s subjects by depriving them of advantages and opportunities for tbe exertion of their enterprize and the improvement of their outward circumstances, except at the sacrifice perhaps of cherished religious principles, or the violation of conscientious scruples. Any detailed proof of the correctness of the opinions just stated would be out of place on the present occasion. But we may be permitted presently to allude to a few undeniable facts in illustration ol the results of some of the experiments that have so far been made. To ascertain precisely what amount of these unfavorable consequences is attributable to the nature of the experiments themselves, and how much to incidental circumstances over which the promoters of the experiments had no control would be an invidious task, even Were it a practicable uuc. But it is greatly to be feared that circumstances similar to those which have been considered as most adverse to the success of the schemes hitherto attempted, will most probably always attend the cession by the Crown of such extensive powers as have been given to the associations hitherto formed. To judge by past experience, it seems to be an evil inherent in the plan or entrusting the administration of Crown lands to companies in England, that they find themselves under the necessity, at least in commencing their operations, of disposing of such lands by sale in that country. Whether called trading companies or not tliey require immediate funds, which must be raised in that way. To force the sale of land in large quantities, it is necestfffy to make abundant promises of whether of a moral or material kind, which may attract the requisite number of purchasers. These advantages (as has been the case with respect to all experiments hitherto tried) not having been obtained, or obtained to the promised Extent, claims for compensation arise which have to be satisfied by gratuitous grants of land ; and the result is a greater waste of public land than took place even under tbe old system, and all the manifold evils that accompany such profusion;

But the establishment of associations also introduces into the colony organized bodies invested with many of the powers which are ordinarily entrusted to the Imperial or the ~ocal Government. The natural consequence ts a want of harmony and co-operation, the consequences of which are most injurious to

the colony ahd the public. pL seems to lead irresistibly that similar difficulties, to other, will always arise from th« n of governing bodies mutually in<L?*? i *iii with often conflicting interests T □ attempting W decide with respect Jto which party th. b |, m , “Mill winch have injured both is J tached, we cannot refrain from ex D r • * apprehension lest the blame of fut,.. should such take pl may atm Ur |l the inharmonious working of the in? • j societies concerned, with that compensation to all pa.tj M u- ’ be again demanded from Gove mm extent almost ruinous to the land u and most detrimental to the public Because it will require sc small ah ingenuity to paint any failure as threShT* nonfulfillment of some supposed duly of n * ment, or its neglect to adopt soi measure or measures, real or X ““l possibly only discovered and tu&S' S the event. Bui he all thi. u it m.y, the effects of the system of ceding thtfo., power to associations, afforded by p.7*' pany which has lately ceased to act shewn to be strongly against the exptf of its repetition, by one strikingfaf/5 difference between what has been effected h it at the expense of Government, and Government might have done at th* pense by its previously existing machU is as follows. Government has parted « manently with 270,073 acres to theCotaZ of land sold by them, and with about Soooj acres of land which has been given, must be given, under existing engagement such of their purchasers to whom the tmlt of the experiments have not been satisfactory, It has further iu actual money given loth Company a boon of £236,000, and impoeed on tbe colonial land fund a debt of aiiotfe sum of <£268,000, to be hereafter paid te th Company. Had the land so disposed of beet sold by Government at the eqiret price adj of£l per acre, and half of the proceeds devod under the provisions of the Waste Lands Adj to emigration, and the sums expebded 01 titi Company been advanced to the colony, it! applied to the same object, there might bin I’ccii iutrOu need into the Province of NewM» ster no fewer than 65,241 emigrants, onetW adults, and two thirds children, — their passage being taken at the titfil which the Land and Emigiation Coans sioners actually paid for the few they Ml hither. And this would still have left fab ample and probably far more than sußfel for the purchase of land, and all expense connected with its sale and adminieiftlitt The number really introduced by the C® pany amounted to 11,680 souls,—about tk present population of the Province. After all reasonable allowance, thenjotih! obligation the public is under to the Compaq for having by its enterprize been the meansof causing the occupation by your Majestj’sGfvernmsnt of this invaluable field for colonix* tion, and by its energy and activity, of keeping the public attention continually »li«& the advantages of emigration thereto, we cmnot refrain from expressing our opinion till the facts just stated incontestibly prove lb the plan adopted by Parliament, of delegate the administration of the Crown lands to ciations, is a highly impolitic and injuriousoet.

We therefore pray (bat your be graciously pleased to direct, ssllfW* pends upon your Majesty, that tbe admio*| tration and disposal of the Crown demesne»l this colony may be based upon one uniWl and impartial system, as was doneby wj“l of Parliament so often alluded io, ~ I was devised with so much care, eipefitwl and deliberation, and attended with I apparently so satisfactory ana pray that all lands whatever may be - of by sale on equal terms, whether to P r ‘ individuals or public associations, ihoW,, the loss and detriment resulting ft®®' ments of whatever kind in c °l° d ’ z * ,wi Lia hereafter fall not upon the public, . upon the real owners of the lauds Jj to which they are made, upon set them on foot, and should alone be sible for their failure; and in order , public interests, and the rights and we all your Majesty’s subjects in this be equally and equitably provided for cured. • •