The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.) THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 149, 19 March 1874, Page 2

The Standard. (PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, AND SATURDAY.)

THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 1874.

“ \\ e shall sell to no man justice or right: We shall deny to no man justice or right: We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

We reprint, this morning, portion of an article from the Auckland Evening Star of the 4th March, in which the Editor of that journal rather vigorously sums up the remarks made a short time since by the Poverty Bay Herald, in criticising the action of the Government in receiving applications for land in this district, during the recent visit of the Superintendent to Gisborne. The article says :— We would direct marked attention to a statement in our telegraphic intelligence from Napier. It tells of an outcry at Poverty Bay on the discovery that the Gisborne* town sections had been sold privately by the Government during the Superintendent’s visit. The Herald says the action is on a par with that of many who have been sentenced to long terms of penal servitude. M it h reference to this, we would remark in the first place that 'the sales alluded to are such as have taken p’acc in every township in the province all the time since the passing of the Auckland Waste Lands Act of 1367- In clause 20 of / Lat

measure it i* thus etinrted“ It shall be lawful for any person within twelve calendar months after any auction to become the purchaser by private contract of any land so put up for sale as aforesaid, and not knocked down to any bidder, on paying for the same in cash the upset price at which the same was put up for sale.” In accordance with this any land put up for sale by auction and not sold is, as even-one knows, open for selection for twelve months at the upset price. 'The Gisborne lands, in question, had been put up for sale in Muy last.. A large number of lots were not sold. Hundreds of pounds’ worth of these have since been taken up at upset price, bv applications lodged in Auckland. Similar applications were made at Gisborne to the Commissioner of Crown • Lands, then accompanying the Superintendent, and accepted by him subject to the condition that if previously applied for in Auckland since the departure of the Commissioner, the deposit would be refunded. There was nothing done that has not been done at every port visited by the Commissioner of Crown Lands in his trip with the Superintendent; and even since his return a number of Gisborne allotments have been similarly dealt with on application from a resident in Auckland. But we wish to speak especially of the action of the Poverty Bay Herald in this matter. We know that it is at the bottom of this affair; and its conduct is quite intelligible. That paper has been started at Poverty Bay to promote Napier interests. Its patron is Mr. Ormond,Superintendent of Hawke’s Bay, and, reuresent ing those who demand’the annexation of Poverty Bay and, the ascendancy of the runholders, it has naturally viewed with suspicion the visit of the Auckland Superintendent and his scheme of special settlement of population. Further on it says that the Editor’s

Qffkdous, sneakingrattentions to the Superintendent when at Gisborne, were only equalled by his insidious undermining of Provincial influence, and his praise of his own patrons in the columns of the paper. And continues thus : —

The paper was started against the Standard —a most respectable journal—allied with the popular interest though reasonably supporting the interest of the sheep owners ; but the new paper, as it deserves, is running itself to death by expensive mismanagement and dummy advertisements, affording indications to the eye of newspaper men, of speedy dissolution. Its unscrupulousness, and the unprincipled conduct of the Hawke’s Bay land-robber gang are well exemplified in the unfounded charge as above against the Superintendent, a charge which will be taken at its value by any one with the merest smattering of knowledge of our Waste Lands Act of 1867.

Now, while we think the charge made by the Herald against the Provincial Government of “ surrepti- “ tiously” promoting a private sale of town sections to “ individuals whom “ the Provincial authorities thought it “ worth while to gratify,” is utterly unfounded, and has brought upon itself a well-deserved censure, we cannot entirely agree with the Government in its reading of the Land laws under which those sections were sold. That portion of Clause 20, which the Star quotes, quite establishes the right of any person to buy lands that have been submitted to, and not sold at, public auction (hence the applications for town sections received by the Commissioner of Crown Lands were quite legal; whether it was judicious to receive them is a matter to which we shall presently refer), but the point in dispute lies in the other half of Clause 20, which runs as follows : — Provided always that it shall be lawful for the Superintendent instead of permitting any land to be purchased as authorized by the last two clauses to cause any lands which shall not have been already applied for under the said clauses to be put up again to auction giving such notice thereof as is hereinbefore provided in respect of land to be offered at auction.

Herein is a permissive power given to the Superintendent to withdraw’ from an applicant the right to purchase by application any lauds named in “ the last two clauses,” in case he should find it necessary, in the conservation of public interests, to do so. The two clauses alluded to provide, first: That sections that have been sold by auction and the purchase money not completed ; and, second, those" that have been submitted to auction, but not sold may be bought by private application at any time within twelve months from the date of such auction, provided that the Superintendent “ permits” this mode of sale, by not exercising his right of veto, in deciding that they shall “ be “ put up again to auction.” It was decided after the sale in May, 1873, to leave all the unsold sections in Gisborne open for individual application, and, undeniably, the Land Commissioner was bound to sell according to law- ; but we incline to the belief, that, acting in the interests of the public, it was injudicious not to have conserved these lands for public auction, for there can be no possible doubt that had they been re-submitted to public competition, the Provincial Exchequer would have largely benefitted by it, and the district would have had a proportionably larger claim for expenditure on public works. Of the legality of what has been done, there can be no question; the sections were not actually “ sold” by the Government in Gisborne ; but those who had their w its about them, took advantage of the presence of the Commissioner of Crown Lands here to entrust him with applications which he could not officially record until his • return to Auckland.’ Nevertheless, it

is to be regretted that other equally legal action was not taken, which would not have exposed the Executive to much unnecessary blame.