(To the Editor.)

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 233, 18 July 1872, Page 6

(To the Editor.)

Sir, — The course you have chosen to take regarding the sale of land to Cargill and Anderson is highly discreditable. You have, instead of advocating the true interests of the country, made yourself the organ of a few petty storekeepers and miners — notoriously the most dissatisfied class in the colony. They don't want the land themselves, and with true dog in the manger spirit, they try to prevent anyone else acquiring it. Ff they had the land, what would they dp, with it ? Miserably starve. Cargill and Anderson will spend money and improve the land — will employ labour and improve the breed of sheep. Are these things not to be taken into consideration 1 What have the, miners or storekeepers of the Teviot done, that they should have, a monqpoly of the iVJolyneux Valley? They have only, striven to.

benefit themselves,, and although they talk so much about settling down, I doubt if one in twenty ever seriously intends to make New Zealand his home. Wool is as valuable an export as gold, and its production does not destroy land like gold^etting. Another point overlooked by these agitators, is that Cargill and Anderson were settled for many years previous to the gold discovery on their present location, and have therefore a pre-emptive right to the possession of a large area of it. If I 'had my way, I should sell 40,000 instead of 20,000 acres. The true interests of the country is not to settle a lot of impoverished cockatoos on the soil, but to sell the land to men that have got money to expend in improvements. I hope the Waste Lands Board will not be influenced by the senseless bowlings from these Roxburgh graballs, but will sell the land. As this is the other side of the question, in common justice I ask you to insert it.- —I am, &c, Landholder.

Tokomairiro, July 13.