The Southland Times. INVERCARGILL: FRIDAY, AUGUST 22

Southland Times, Issue 1783, 22 August 1873, Page 2

The Southland Times. INVERCARGILL: FRIDAY, AUGUST 22

The report by the Chief Commissioner of the transactions of the Land Department of Southland for the year ending 31st March, 1873, has come to hand, aad it contains a large amount of useful information, together with suggestions relative to the disposal of land. This report shows an area of 63,099 acreß disposed of in the district of Southland during the year, inclusive of 13,473 acres of land disposed of in payment for public works ; and the revenue derived therefrom is stated at £61,963, exclusive of the value of the land for public works as above, which is estimated at £1 per acre. The sum of £14,990 has been also collected for land within the extended district, and for Crown Grants £547, the total cost of collection being £862 10s, or about 2£d in the £1. The report states that a large proportion of the land disposed of has been purchased in large blocks, not for real settlement, but for sheep grazing, and deals with this vexed question by advocating the introduction of an Amended Act. The remedy suggested is, the setting aside by the Government of blocks of from 1000 to 5000 acres, for sale exclusively under the deferred payments system, and for special settlement over all the Southland district. It further suggests the propriety of repurchase from the squatters, of tbe best lands for agricultural settlement, the purchase money to be obtained from the sale of the Bluff- Winton line of rail, of which the General Government contemplates (ifc is understood) the purchase, the Commissioner holding the opinion that such lands may be purchased at a slight advance on tbe price for which they were sold, providing that the grazing rights of the squatters over the surrendered lands should not be disturbed during the currency of existing leases. The impolicy of reducing the price of land in the old hundreds is argued from the great advance which has lately taken place in the sales therein, instancing specially the hundreds of Oreti and Tuturau, in the former of which two-thirds of the whole quantity disposed of has been sold during the past year. The whole of the unsold land within the Toi Tois hundred is recommended to be set apart for sale exclusively on the principle of deferred payments, on the ground of its adaptability for settlement by the luxuriance of its crops. On the question, long before the public, of the Knapdale run, the Commissioner recommends the setting aside thereon of a block of 5,000 acres for sale exclusively on the deferred payments clause, and as this was taken up and settled, to increase the size of the block, but in no other way to sell an acre on the Knapdale run or any other run in the district. On the Nightcap coalfields the report gives the result of Mr T. J. Thompson's explorations ih tracing the seam from the outcrop, where by boring he had ascertained that it was eleven feet thick to the valley of the Opio Creek, where he has laid it bare, at a distance of about 20 miles from Winton. Further explorations have however discovered indications of the seam on the flat, about a mile and half from Wrey's Bush, and within 17 miles of Winton. On the subject of special settlements, the Seaward Bush and Longwood Bush are favorably commented upon as being particularly well adapted for the purpose. A supplementary report deals wholly wifch the matter of fche amendment of the present Southland Land Act, and advises the extension of the area determined by Clause 53 of the Otago Act, at 200 acres, to 800 or 1000 acres under the deferred payments system, on the grouud thafc a settler would thus be able to combine sheep with agricultural farming. It also recommends that the sum being fixed to be expended on improvements, the direction of the expenditure should be left to the intelligence of the occupier, a recommendation which for very obvious reasons commends itself.