AMERICAN LAND LAWS. [From the Sydney Empire.]

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 853, 5 October 1853, Page 5

AMERICAN LAND LAWS. [From the Sydney Empire.]

The public journals of the day, when illuding to the Land System of the United States, have failed to inform their readers in what that system differs from any other ; it may, therefore, interest tbove who hare the advancement of this colony at heart, to know lomething about it. In the first place, there is an admirable system of surveying, which, by disregarding the river courses as boundaries, is reduced to the utmost simplicity and precision ; it is by latitudinal and longitudinal lines, forming square miles, which are called sections; these are subdivided into quarter sections, making one hundred and sixty acres each. The emigrant or settler desirous of proceeding into the interior, first applies to the General Land office, in Washington city, or one of the district offices, for plans or map* of that portion of the country where he intends to settle ; he can thereby ascertain, without the least delay or expense, what land is for sale, and what has been sold, in the surveyed districts, the Government price being one dollar and a quarter per acre, which, under no circumstance whatsoever, admits of variation. If a settler goes into a part of the countty not yet surffeyed, and builds a hut, or ploughs a field or makes any improvement thereon, he is entitled 10 a pre-emption right to a quarter of a section, or one hundred and sixty acres for his wife, and one hundred and sixty acres for every child he ! takes to the country with him. In course of time the survey is made, and notice is given that the laud shall be offered for sale at one dollar and a

quarter six months after that date, at which time , tbe squatter makes payment for the number of acres he requires — there is no competition, and no extra price offered can induce tbe Government officer to take any advantage of the pioneer settier. To obtain a pre-emption right to any land, I it is imperatively necessary to occupy it, and this has effectively checked any systematic monopoly by capitalists to any dangerous extent. It is true the pioneer squatter has in many cases made himself rich by first settling in an unsurveyed country, then selling his pre-emption right with improvements after tbe survey, and moving further into tbe wilderness to open other lands. We find many wealthy individuals settled on the western frontisrs of tbe United States who have largely profited by this mode of occupation, alike beneficial to others as to themselves. It has become a trade which has done more perhaps to the advancement of the nation than toy other, and the value of which the American statesman knows better than the framers of the land system in this colony, as I hope hereafter to demonstrate to the satisfaction of my readers. When the Oregon question between England and the United States was settled, tbe wisdom of < the latter Government determined on offering the , strongest inducements in their power to effect a speedy settlement of that territory. A law was therefore promulgated, granting to every settler, native or foreigner, 160 acres for himself, 160 acres for his wife, and 160 acres for every child, free of any charge whatever. This law was to exist until 1858. There is now before the Congress of the United States a BiP, the intent of which is to augment their population, and divert, if possible, the tide of emigration from these colonies, by giving to each settler a quarter section of land, free of any charge. America knows the advantages of emigration too well to see these colonies benefiting from the same cause without straining a point to maintain and increase the vast benefits she has so long derived from a population daily pouring into her treasary tbe profits of their industry. Some of tbe South American States, such as Mexico and New Granada, have repeatedly made voluntary grants to such individuals as would undertake to people the districts, granted in a specified number of years : but, alas ! civil factions have destroyed that confidence requisite to personal security, and they have not succeeded. In New South Wales, however, and in the adjoining colonies a worse than faction exists, for a price is pat on the land which, together with the labyrinth of official perplexities, delays, and peddling propensities, renders it next to impossible for a stranger to know where be can get a small farm or a large one from the Government. The squatters say the country is not fit for agricultural pursuits, because tbe seasons are variable ; let them visit the extensive plains between the eastern and western Cordilleras of South America, and learn tbe simple mode of irrigation practised there, by which hundreds of leagues of arid land are rendered fertile where a blade of grass would not otherwise exist, and they will then learn that few countries are more applicable to agriculture than New South Wales under the same system.