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Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2628, 11 June 1877, Page 2

We learn on good authority that the Auckland Waste Lands Board are greatly exercised in reference to the question of Volunteer land scrip. When these scrip were first called into existence the intention was that they should be exercised only over land the property of the Province within which the military services had been rendered. Thus the present holders of Volunteer scrip would have been compelled to use theirs over lands in the North, where almost the whole of the Provincial lands were situated. But by the abolition of the Provinces all the rights and liabilities of the provincial authorities fell to the General Government, and an opinion was given by the Crown law officers (which has never been questioned) that these scrip can be exercised over all the lands the property of the General Government within the provincial district where they were earned. The Waste Lands Board,

howerer, to whom all the lands have been, j or are about to be, handed over, scarcely recognise the justice of allowing such an extension of the real and equitable rights originally conferred by these documents, and as they have the sole power of offering lands for sr.le by public auction, we j learn that it is probable that no confiscated or other lands hitherto the property of the Colonial Government will be made available for the exercise of these scrip. The time within which they must be made use of expires in November, so that there will not be much difficulty in carrying onL this idea. Opportunity, of course, must be given to the holders to convert their certificates into land, and we hear that a block of land to the North of Auckland will be prepared for that purpose, and there is a great deal of justice and wisdom in this course. Were it possible that those who have earned the scrip could, even in the majority of instances, use them on their own behalf in the purchase of land for bona fide settlement, nothing could be more desirablo than to give them the pick of the country. But £30 worth of land is not enough for a men to hold, and therefore, in nine cases out of ten, the scrip have fallen into the hands of speculators who have purchased them for the purpose of bidding for the choice lands of Waikato, Ohinemuri and the Thames when they are offered for public competition, thereby placing the bona fide settler, whose improvements have raised the value of the land, at an immense disadvantage. We think on the whole the action of the Waste Lands Board leans to the side of justice, although, doubtless, a few who have been speculating on first class lands being brought, into the market will be somewhat disappointed.