NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, October 28, 1854.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 964, 28 October 1854, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, October 28, 1854.

A correspondence in connection with the land question appears in to-day's Spectator of sufficient importance to excite general attention in this Province. A memorial signed hy' certain runholders was presented to the Superintendent, complaining that they are unable to obtain leases for their runs in conformity with the Pasturage Regulations, and that while the Land Regulations issued by Sir George Grey which fix the price of agricultural lands at 10s. an acre have been extensively acted on in this Province, those provisions which relate to lands not available for agriculture in districts outside Hundreds, and which prescribe that such lands, on the certificate of the Commission of Crown Lands as to their not heing worth 10s. an acre, shall on the application of an intending purchaser be put up to auction at an upset price of ss. an acre, have not been brought into operation, and they request as a matter of justice .that the Land Regulations shall be fairly car-,, ried out. The answer to this memorial is characteristic and curious. The application for leases for runs is met by an 'evasion, or, to speak more correctly, 'an equivocation ; ' inasmuch as it it is shewn in Mr. V: Smith's reply that

blocks purchased from the natives containing upwards of 900,000 acres have "been surveyed, but not a single license to the runholders in them has bpen issued. The resolution adopted by the Executive Council in which, after referring to the' '^strong expression of opinion in the General Assembly adverse to the sale of land at ss. per acre," it is declared "the Provincial Executive will not make itself a party to ss. an dere sales in any part of the Province" requires some notice at our hands. If the members of the Provincial Executive have forgotten that this question of cheap land was the shibboleth of the elections, the electors have not. Everyone remembers when- Sir George Grey issued'his Land Begulations, with what acclamation they were received; that the men now in power all at once discovered they were always the advocates for <$heap land, and complained that the Governor by his Land Regulations had stolen •a march upon them for the purpose of influencing the elections. But in proof of our assertion that the members of the Provincial Executive were electe&pledffed to ili6 question of cheap land, pledged to •carry out Sir G. Grey's Land Regulations, Jet^is refer back- for a moment to the Provincial Secretary's statements at the time ' ■of the elections. JjoLhis address to the, electors this is the very first' question to which- Mr. Fitzherbert addresses himself. " The great New Zealand question," he says, is " the Land Question." " I am an advocate for cTieap land" That there should be no mistake 1 about his opinion, — to show how much in earnest he was — he places this 'statement on record before the electors, as we have repeated it, in italics ; as though he had said — "I know, how anxious you are on this 1 subject, and I am quite prepared to give the fullest and most emphatic expression to your wishes.. — laman advocdtefor cheap land" At the meeting at the Hutt previous to the elections, |dr. Fitzherbert and his friends manifested such an anxiety for cheap land, that they were humorously compared by Dr. Evans, in their bidding for popularity, to the buyers at a Dutch auction — which should bid lowest. At the meeting of electors at Wellington, July 27th, 1853, when Mr. Allen proposed that the candidates should pledge themselves to resign their seats in the- event oi their forfeiting the confidence of their constituents, an amendment was moved which was most strenuously supported by Mr. Fitzherbert, the chief feature of which was a pledge in favor of " cheap land as passed by the recent proclamation of Sir George Grey." But we need not go further, no one can entertain a shadow of a doubt that if the Members of the Executive Council had openly stated on the hustings to the electors, as they now "state in this resolution — that they would not make themselves parties to ss. an acre sales in any part of the Province, not pne.of them would have beon elected. In passing this resolution then they have deliberatelybroken, their pledges, and forfeited all claim to public confidence, they have, m fact, obtained their seats under false pretences. But they have done more than this. They have the effrontery to declare that they mean to throw aside the law with contempt and . treat it as a dead letter. For by the Waste Lands Act, for which they have such regard,, Sir George Grey's Land Regulations are confirmed and declared to have been always valid ; they are consequently the law and will remain so until altered by the Governor; when therefore the Provincial Executive states it will not make itself 'a party to ss. an acre sales, it says in effect that it means to set the law and the wishes of the electors at defiance, and to throw their own deliberate and solemn pledges to the winds. But when was this strong adverse opinion to the sale of land at ss. an acre expressed in the General Assembly ? Whence this sudden regard for the opinions of the General Assembly by men who affect to undervalue its authority, and endeavour to exalt the influence of Provincial authority at the expence of the General Government ? By a reference to the Waste Lands A.ct (published in the Spectator of the 14th inst.,) it will be seen that its main object is to enable the Provincial .Councils to establish such regulations as to' the' price of land or otherwise, as may be desired by the inhabitants of the different Provinces. For this purpose the. regulations must be previously published 28 days before .they "are proposed, so thaiUhepubHc.mky^e^ formed oT them ;' and as it is clear that sonle juggle is about to be practised in the price oi land, we give an early intimation to the electoretobe on their guard, and to take such efficient measures as may prevefit the juggle from being suc- ■»' The Hashemy arrived on Wednesday from Sydney with stock-. * The Sydney papers to the ,J4th inst.,- received by this , opportunity do not contain any .later English news than we were previously in possession of.