AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, September 24, 1851.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 641, 24 September 1851, Page 3

AND COOK’S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, September 24, 1851.

|By the Proclamations in the last Govern■wienf Gazette the division of country disItricts into Hundreds, an arrangement which (has been found to work so beneficially in the INorthern Province, has been brought into I operation in the settlements formed by the (New Zealand Company. New Plymouth land Wanganui have been divided into HunIdreds, and it is intended also to divide into lllundreds the settlement of Nelson. In ■effect, for the first time the occupiers of ■land in these settlements are allowed to [participate in the management of the unsold Blands; withintheir limits the principle of local ■self-government is virtually introduced, and ■each country settler residing within the limits |of a Hundred knows and feels that he has |now a direct and personal interest in the apipropriation of the waste lands of the Crown. ■Under this system any attempt at jobbing, ■such as was practised by the late Agent of ■the New Zealand Company, becomes utterly ■ impossible, since all the inhabitants of a I Hundred must first be consenting parties to ■the job. All the rents for pasturage to be ■derived from the waste lands of the Hundred land one-third the gross proceeds of the ■ sales of land are under the management of

■.the Wardens of each Hundred, who are ani nually elected by the occupiers of land, for | the purpose of making roads and other imUprovements in the Hundred to the extent of lhe means placed at their disposal. To shew the value and importance of the privilege conferred by these Proclamations, we may refer to the first sale of Crown Lands at Nelson, notice of which is published in the Gazette; the total upset price amounts to £6073, one-third of which, or upwards of £2OOO, will be placed at the disposal of the Wardens of the Hundreds within which hese lands are situated for the purpose of local improvements. We understand there is little doubt that the whole of the land offered for sale will be sold, as the greater portion of it has been applied for. In the last number of the Nelson Examiner received, our contemporary enters into a consideration of the advantages to be derived by that settlement from the powers to be conferred on I its inhabitants by constituting it a separate I Province, and by the -power of local self- ■ government by means of the Provincial I Councils Ordinance, speculating on the proIbability of raising a loan for the purposes of immigration to be secured either on the land | fund or on the general revenue of the Pro- | vince. Thus, as we have before had occasion I to observe, the march of improvement has I commenced in the different settlements, the | "‘Habitants of which evince an anxiety to | avail themselves of the advantages offered

them, except in Wellington, where the efforts of a few factious persons endeavour to neutralize these advantages and prevent, as far as they can, the exercise of these powers by the inhabitants of the Settlement. And as if to shew their extreme inconsistency, these very persons while they clamour for Representative Institutions, reject (as in the Town Roads Ordinance) the principle of self government and representation when offered to them, even though based on universal suffrage. They proclaim their determined opposition to all Nominee Legislation, and yet the most violent among them are the most eager applicants for runs for stock under a Nominee Ordinance.