LAND FOR THE PEOPLE?

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 314, 20 April 1878, Page 2

LAND FOR THE PEOPLE?

Land advertised for stile in Poverty Pay, has been priced very high by the Auckland Waste Lands Board. A large proportion of sections in newly surveyed township have been priced at £ls per quarter acre, llnral land np to £2O per acre. The Poverty' Bay Standard, in an article on the subject says :—“ On Tuesday, the 21st day May, the Chief Commissioner of the Waste Lands Board notifies that he will sell by public auction the first instalment of the Patntahi Block, consisting of town, suburban, and rural lands. The sale will take place on the day mentioned in the Court House. Gisborne, commencing at 12 o’clock. The area to be sold is 13,162 acres, the rural sections being classed as first, second, and third quality land. Those who have seen the scaednlo have been quite startled and are heartily disgusted at the enormous upset price which has been placed against the several sections.

We ask every koviest-iriincle<3, -wellthinking man whether it is lair, or politic, that the members of a Waste Lands Board should be permitted to fix the price of the lands of a colony, which are the property of the people, at such a figure that no poor man can hope to obtain an acre ; that no man of fairly moderate moans can possess without'the. life blood of bis’ resources being - drained to the utmost. Is it right that a set ot Commissioners should bo allowed to act as mere jobbers ? We do not say that these reserved prices have been fixed to benefit an Auckland land ring, because we are not in their secrets. But there are very many who do think this to oo the case, and although we will not pronounce their assertions to be true, wo are very far from declaring taey are false. **■« * * *

“ Coming to what is termed ‘ firstclass rural laud,’ we find many of the sections are to be offered with a reserve upon them of twenty pounds per acre , as for instance, in Sections 1, 2, and 3, (Turanganni Survey District, Block 1). This is trying to place the poor man on the land with a vengeance-! We venture to say that no County Crown land was ever offered for sate by any Government in any colony in the Southern hemisphere at such an exorbitant upset price. We challenge the Chief Commissioners of the Waste

Lands Board to adduce a single instance where' such an imposition upon the rights of (he people have been tried. If Sir George Grey has anything in him that' means fair towards the people of this district, he will semi Mr Chief Commissioner of the Auckland Waste Lands Beard, and all who' sit, thereat to the right about. ‘The lands of the colony belong to .the people us their right inalienable’ said Sir George Grey at Dunedin ; and ho said ihe same at Christchurch and in Hokitika and Grcymouth and elsewhere. Hay mg’ made this plain assertion, Sir George Grey wont on with bis usual babyish prattle about every man living’ under his own fig tree, instead of being the rich man’s serf. Now what is it Sir George Grey suffers to be done ? Why to tell men who want to cultivate a piece ot farm land of fair quality that they must pay irons ton to twenty pounds an acre for it: Terms; — twentn-Jice per cent, cash down and the balance, in a month , the buyer having paid fov it, then to pay the cost of obtaining his title.

“ These are our liberal laud regulations; and this the way the people of Poverty Pay, after their long suffering and many endurances, are to be treated; To be made, if it can be done; tin*' victims of a land ring, or at any rate to > be bled to the last farthing to secure a bit of acreage for cultivation and a site for a homestead. The Commissioner of Waste Lauds knows quite well that Patntahi sections have long been iri such eager demand that it was not the least likely they would have been sacrificed below their true value. Why should he then have put reserves upon them ■that lie must know few people in Poverty Bay can afford .to pay ? An appeal should at once be made against the conditions upon which tlmse lands are to be disposed of, and it must not be one of the milk and water kind; Let the Premier of the colony he ndd'rcsbed on the matter, then we may find whether he inis sonic-tiling belter in him than the saying of soft nothings, ami babbling about poor men’s rights, while ho looks on in coo] blood and anrnfried temper at Un-ir wrongs.”