TEST CASE.

Patea Mail, 16 October 1880, Page 2

TEST CASE.

A question of land policy lias to be decided by the Government, and an unbiassed expression of public opinion may prevent a miscarriage of justice as between settlers in the colony and out of it. Wc challenge the justice of the bargain which has been made by the Land Board at Auckland with the agent of the Lincolnshire delegates. We challenge it on the ground that the Government ought not to offer better

terms to persons outside the colony than they do to persons who have already paid their passage and are here seeking land for farming. Land is public estate, and should be administered for the benefit of the population who are here. If outsiders arc to be tempted to come here by special terms, it is contrary to common justice that persons in the colony should be excluded from competing for the same land on the same terms. The block of 17,500 acres at Te Aroha is not the property of the

Auckland Land Board. They are mere administrators of a portion of the public estate ; and it is not for them to offer that land at 32s per acre, and exclude colonists from settling on that laud at the same price. The price fixed by the Land Board is not a reserve figure : it is a price at which 45 fanners in Lincolnshire shall be allowed to secure the land for themselves, excluding all persons within the colony from taking a single acre at the same price. It is astonishing that public men can so blind their

sense of right and wrong as to make a bargain of this kind. Fanners in this colony seeking land arc surely entitled to have the same terms for land as capitalists who arc still outside the colony. What have we colonists and taxpayers done to deserve exclusion ? This bargain is made on a bad principle, and stands condemned by common sense. It is unfair, because hundreds of capitalists now seeking farms in this colony would be glad to take up land at

Te Aroha in farms of 400 acres at 32s per acre. The men arc here looking and waiting for farms of that sort. Why should the Government refuse their money, and prefer the money of farmers in England who want to come ? Is it Government policy to despise those who are here in favor of outsiders ? Is theirs a kind of affection which is harsh to one’s own family but kind to outsiders ? If that land is to be fixed at 32s an acre, let the 32s be the upset price, and let the 400 acre lots be put up to auction in the usual way. We consider it would

be a desirable condition also to enforce residence on each section, to check mere land-sharking. If that land at Te Aroha is sold to the Lincolnshire agent at 32s

an acre, and if the Government ratify the bargain without stipulating for sale by open competition (preferably with residence clause), we shall have to deplore -the transaction as a blunder. It is hardly conceivable that Ministers will fail to do what is just to the colony in this matter. They must be aware that men with capital are leaving the colony continually, because they cannot get desirable land in 400 acre lots at so easy a price as is now offered to outsiders. The Government might as well sell the Waimatc Plains to this Lincolnshire

agent at £3 an acre, and exclude all other parties from bidding at the price. How should we colonists like that ? Yet it is the same principle exactly. Why not the same practice ? «■