The Tuapeka Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1871. "Measures, not Men."

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 190, 28 September 1871, Page 4

The Tuapeka Times. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1871. "Measures, not Men."

The deed is done ! Proposed by the Provincial Executive, approved of by the Provincial Council, and agreed to by the Waste Lands Board. 45,000 acres of the public estate? have passed into private hands. When first the proposed sale was mooted we protested against it as loudly as we could. Several of our correspondents living in the neighborhood of the land gave timely warning of the bad effects which would result from the sale to the Mount Benger district, but all to no effect. The Government wanted money and cared not how it way obtained — so instead of acknowledging their incapacity for the position they held they sacrificed this land. If any act could more forcibly thai) another prove Pro-

vmcialismto be in its dotage, so far as Otago is concerned, we think it will be agreed that this last act of the Government is proof indisputable. We most sincerely trust that this •will be the last opportunity the Reid Government or any other Government will have of sacrificing the public estate. The Liberal Government that the Tuapeka people feasted and who almost sent us crazy in our admiration of them, so soon to prove themselves poor, weakand miserable — without a single shift in them. What awful simpletons we must have been not to observe the hollowness of their professions. The Government which made the land question its hobby, and whose note of warning was the repeal of the Hundreds Regulations Acts, before it has been more than a few months in office sells, in defiance of law and reason, without competition, and in one block, 45,000 acres of good agricultural and pastoral land at the upset price of twenty shillings per acre. Oh no — not quite so much, but at the exceptionally low price of fifteen shillings and sixpence per acre. Seventy square miles of Otago's fair country for thirty-five thousand pounds ! And what does the district or the province get in its stead ? Nothing — absolutely nothing. The seventy square miles which have just passed from the hands of the public must be looked upon as the price of Provincial extravagance — that fine country has been sacrificed to keep up the j wig and gown and all the attendant mimicry of the " House " — been sacrificed too by men who were the friends of the people, the reputed Retrenchment Government. What, we have asked, will the district get in exchange for this money ? Surely it will get that quagmire of a road by the Island Block made passable — even ten per cent of the amount would go a long way towards making that portion of the main up-country road passable. But no. not a penny of it will be expended in the district — not a penny of it* in the province, for it has already been absorbed to meet the Government deficiency. It is melaucholy to think that the Government of this pi'ovince is in the hands of men so incompetent, and that our Provincial Councillors would sanction such an act of gross injustice upon the people — au act at once opposed to the spirit of the land laws of the Province and repugnant to the feelings of every colonist who wishes to see the country inhabited by a thriving population, and not monopolised by capitalists. We have sometimes pitied the foibles of Mr. J. G. S. Grant, but we never have overlooked his consistency in advocating the cause of the people. Strange to say he is the only man in Dunedin who has thought it worth his while to draw public attention to this disgraceful act of the Provincial Government. Read what he says in a letter to a Dunedin contemporar}*- : — "By last night's issue of your paper, I observe, with natural amazement, that the poor , man's Government has, in an evil hour, sealed its own doom, in the eyes of every consistent man, by granting Clarke's application for 45,000 acres at actually 15s 6d per acre. Talk not to me, henceforth, of consistency ; for, as Emerson says, 'it is a fool's word.' Declaim no more to me about settling the country with an industrious peasantry — ' their country's pride ' ; for such phrases in the mouths of such men as now misgovern Otago, are the emptiest declamation. It is insult added to injury, in so far as the working man is concerned. O temporal O Mores!" It is well for the Province that the large powers vested in the Council are about to be curtailed. We are glad to see the present Colonial Government so strong on this point, and shall welcome an immediate change of some description. We may have more justice awarded us by the General Government ; we certainly cannot have less than we are getting from the Provincial Government.