THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1861.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 371, 14 May 1861, Page 2

THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1861.

Everybody will remember the attempt made by the Superintendent soon, after his election to pass a measure through the Council for facilitating the efforts of men of smalljmeans to possess land, and thus people and turn to good account the out-of~the r way pai<ts pfhhei province, h Thi£ $ie|prbppsfed> t§ do by selling land on credit to bona-fide ■settlers, under certain conditions "to" be strictly fulGlle'ct by,the purchaser. Perhaps no. subject in the eight gears' exis'ten.ce" «tf! the! Gouncilj was. ever so' thoroughly discussed.,, A reference to our papers of -that: period will show what; interest was by the subject, and how. members of the Council displayed their peculiar forte in the endeavor1 td; turhsd^eiiepciaf a measure to their own account, ' from the' floekowners to the men of minerals. Many will recollect too the smart articles which appeared against the measure in our contemporary, who elaborately labored to show that it was impossible for a Government to collect rents. How is it that Government 'is so expert in gathering taxes? We believe there would be less difficulty with the former than with the latter, as most men 1 would rather pay for that from which they derive a positive and lasting benefit, than for that which, in most cases, is no benefit at all.

Dr. Monro was then far away south, but came back in' time to choke the Superintendent's bantling; for what right has a poor man to land ?—the three-hundred-pound cum compensation men were the only ones that,ought to divide the country between them, while all others should' be two-and-sixpenny-a-day serfs. However, the Doctor reduced his squad to submission, and those who had [been mott earnest in. extending the time of payment (for the public good of course) servilely gave in, and the bill was reduced to the smallest amount of benefit possible, and even in this state it was disallowed by the Stafford Ministry which had just saddled New Zealand with a national debt.

Since then a considerable reaction has taken place in the opinions oF many throughout the colony, who are desirous of seeing New Zealand support men as well as sheep. For, from the far .north to the extreme south,.the principle k admitted to be good, and many ingenious contrivances have been resorted to in order to initiate such a system, in however small a way. At Canterbury the question is being, to use cant phrase, highly ventilated; at Hawke's Bay*

we believe, the Provincial Government has purchased land on purpose to sell it on the deferred payment system ; in Wellington a private society, similar,., to our building societies here, has been/very successful in j their; ' All/.these things are 'working together; for good; and we are glad;to sse that-our Superintendent has not, and we hope will1;'not, given up the idea, and the following may merely be looked upon as an instalment.

Proposed RESOLUTIONS in Amendment of the Waste.Land Regulations op^the Pbo-

VINCB OF NjELSON.

JReserpation of Lands for Settlement.

It shall be lawful for the Waste Land Board, whenever it may seem expedient so to do, to reserve from sale temporarily any blocks of land that the cial Government may intend to prepare for settlement by the making of roads or the construction of other public works therein: Provided that notice of such reserve shall he given in the Government Gazette and in some newspaper circulated in the province.:,..

Whenever any such blocks of land shall have been reserved and the Provincial Government shall have caused such roads or other public works to be constructed therein in order to facilitate the settlement of the same, either out of monies voted by the Provincial Council for such roads or public works, or under the provisions hereinafter contained for authorising the remission of the purohase money of land as: payment for labor, it.shall be lawful for the Board to add to the upset prices that would have been set upon 6uch respective blocks of land under the Waste Land Regulations of the Province now in force, any such sums, though in excess of the maximum prices prescribed thereby, as shall be equivalent to the money expended on such rpada or public works, or to the purchase money to be remitted as aforesaid in payment for the same, within such blocks respectively.

Land in payment for roads or Labor on Public

Works,

Whenever any owner of land shall be entitled to compensation in respect of any land which shall have been taken for t,he purposes of a road, or any other public work, or in respect of damages done to his property by the taking of such land for such purposes, such person shall, upon application to the Wiaste Land Board, receive a certificate entitling him to a remission of so much of the purchase money of any land to be [bought by him at auction, under the Waste Land Regulations, as shall be equal to the compensation aforesaid.

If any person or persons shall contract with the Superintendent to make and complete within a given time any public road, bridge, or drain, furnishing such security as the Superintendent may require for the due completion of such contract, and shall select such portion or portions of land, as he or they shall be willing to accept by way of payment, or part payment for such work ; it shall be lawful for the Waste Land Board at its discretion to reserve such portion cr portions of land from public sale for such given time, but no longer; and such person or persons shall, on completion of such contract, receive from the Waste Land Board a certificate entitling him to a re" mission of so much of the purchase money of th said land, or any other land to be bought by him a t auction as aforesaid, as shall be equal to the sum which the Superintendent shall certify to the Waste Land Board to be the bona fide value of the work so. done by such person or persons, according to the prices for work and materials at the time of performing such contract current in the district.

Every such reservation of land from public sale shall be published in the Government Gazette of the province, and in some newspaper circulated therein. .

No such reservation shall continue in force for a longer period than twelve calendar months from the date on which it shall have been made.

No greater sum shall be remitted to any orie person under the foregoing clauses than .in any one year; nor shall the total sum so to be remitted exceed £2000 in the saino period, without the special sanction of the Provincial Council. :

Leasing of Mineral Lands.

1. In addition to the royalty of one fifteenth of the minerals raised there shall be paid by the lessee of any mineral lands a dead rent of sixpence JGA.) per acre, per annum j for every aci c comprised in the lease; *r>4 the lease shall contain clauses for securing the due and punctual payment thereof..

2< -Clause 53 is. hereby repealed,

3. No land comprised in any such lease shall be sold by or on behalf of the Crown during the continuance of the same, and in every case' where the conditions of}the lease shallj.h.ave. been duly fulfilled, the, lessees shall be entitled to a renewal of the lease on the same terms as those of the original lease. . ;

! - 4.-Application for a mineral leaae,may be received during the continuance of a similar lease'for the same land or any.part of it; but^to.entitle the applicant to itheaext lease thereof, a fee after the rate of £5 fo !every square mile comprised in the land applied for shall be paid in advance for every twelve months' commencing at the date of the application, of the continuance.; of the. prior lease after such date.

' 5. All objections to applications for mineral leasesjo r disputes arising with" respect thereto or to the boundaries of mineraiiaiid? applied for or leased; shall be ? Proceeded with and disposed of in the same manner ln^ all respects as is provided by the regulations aforesaid with repect to the occupation of pasture lands. And the Waste Land Board shall have the same power jto.

lease and dispose of the same accordingly.

Should the scheme of deferred payments %c still opposed, then, perhaps the free-gift System which the Superintendent of Auckland has advocated and carried out so energetically, according to Mr. Dillon Bell, who has been figuring away at Murihikvl,/ in the new Province of Southland, might be brought into operation.

In the Commercial Report of our last sun}-j iriaryit was stated that, through some carelessness on the part of the post-office here, one, of the mail boxes had been sent on to Wellington. :. A friend of the postmaster having'called the attention of that official to the paragraph, the latter has explained that he received the box addressed to Wellington, and forwarded it accordingly. While we are glad to find the explanation removes one accusation against the office, we must regret that the same friend did not as readily draw attention to a previous paragraph, showing that much carelessness., or ignorance must exist where two letters ''addressed to Australia, at different periods, were despatched to London and' various, other places, and did not reach their destination until four or five months afterwards. The occurrence seemed to be so much beyond the usual allowance made in Australia for postal shortcomings, that the envelopes were returned to Sew Xeal%nd,

with a request that this paper would remark upon it. To business , men:!what might be the consequence of such a blunder need not be mentioned, but we cannot help admiring the devotedness of a friend who, while calling attention to the larst, conveniently forgot to refer to the second, which, it is presumed, was not quite so safe to handle. We now learn that no revision of the mail takes place, and that, upon the.' It wasn't 1' principle, the merchants and commercial men of this city may find such inconveniences inflicted upon them denied by * all and sundry,' until perhaps the responsibility reaches some most irresponsible party, perhaps, for instance, the poorly paid subordinate who pasted on the label J Coming from no unreliable source generally, we judged by analogy that the statement was as correct in one point as it was in another; but, as we said before, we are glad that the onus in one instance is removed, although the confession places the public convenience in hazardous insecurity, the right party to be blamed becoming very. problematical under .such circumstances

We have referred to these instanced as only part of an unpleasant duty that falls to the share of the representatives of the public interests, and we shall consider that complaints of carelessness in the main are not satisfactorily negatived until more than one instance is explained away, while the Wellington papers are teeming with complaints of postal deficiency, and accusations against Nelson of inattention. Wellington perhaps considers that she has sufficient cause to grumble when dependent for early English news upon the slips sent from this office by the same steamer that might have taken her mails; and we reprint articles that areof some importance, as the convenience of Nelson and the continuance of this port as the centre for the mail steamers may be seriously affected if any real cause for umbrage can be brought before the General Assembly. The benefits of a nafufally central position for the mail service under its present aspect, may not be sufficient to secure its permanence, if we are ourselves the most careless of those advantages, and the continuance of a mail system that, it' properly worked, is good and beneficial to all.