Tuapeka Times AND QOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1874.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 329, 11 February 1874, Page 2

Tuapeka Times AND QOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1874.

"MEASURES, NOT MEN."

It will be within the recollection of our readers that we recently called their? attention to the result of opening up the Glenkenich land for sale and on the plan of deferred payments, The block in question may be said to have been literally rushed by applicants, bo that it had to be allotted' by ballot. The balloting took place last Thursday, at the Lawrence District Land Office, and we have now to call attention to a defect in the arrangements whereby parties anxious to take up land have, rather than accept the land allotted to them, given it up. The land is measured out in small sections, sufficient for a class of small settlers, who have all their life been accustomed to small administrations, and who take, up land as a supplement, to their means of living ; but if one can get no more than a single section, it is inadequate to yield anything like a respectable living. By law a man may get 200 acres on this principle of deferred payments, provided there is no rush for it ; but in the present instance it was rushed, and an applicant who might have selected three sections, when lie oto Q^. to xc ballot possibly drew only one, and rather than have ifc gave it up altogether. Now what we ask is, Are there no means whereby one may have an opportunity of obtaining an adequate share of land on thiß system on which to settle and rear a family? We are far from desiring that the small settler should not have a chance of a single section, say of 50 acres ; what we want is that arrangements should be so completed that settlers on a larger scale should also be accommodated. We consider that the country will be materially benefitted by such settlers. To take an illustration from navigation : the coaster is of importance to the trade of a country, but its natural wealth is, we believe, most increased by the—bold navigator, who visits neighboring continents and remote shores ; and in our agricultural system we ought to find scope for all classes, and we regret that the arrangements for balloting were such as only to include the small settler ; if by haphazard the more ambitious got accommodated it was due to other circumstances than the arrangements in the balloting. Further, no time should be lost in calling attention to this matter. The Teviot Block is to be open for application on the 20th, at Clyde; and there is the Block on Bellamy Rim to be opened shortly. In the event of a similar rush, better arrangements ought to be made. It is for the good of the republic that all classes should have their interests attended to. In Victoria they are much more liberal than in Otago. 350, if not 500 acres (we believe 500), can be taken up on the deferred payment system. Why not in Otago? We are forced to say it, that we believe the land wonld be better treated by larger holdings. In almost all the small ones the land is so scourged that we hold it is time to attempt reform by encouraging the larger holders, In that case there would be fair scope for alternate cropping. We understand that the Government have partly taken measures to remedy the defect of which we complain in the case of the land on the Bellamy Run. The Hundreds Block surrounds the block on deferred payments, so that parties , may hf,ve an opportunity of increasing their holding by purchasing on the hundred.- Still, this remedy is only partial. It might suit one of limited means better to take up land on deferred payments, reserving his capital for fencing and stocking his holding. Better far to act more liberally with the land, aud throw.it open in larger blocks. We cannot help regarding 30,000 acres thrown open annually over all Otago as a mere dole, and such hitches in the arrangements will be sure to occur unless that dole be at least trippled.

We regard it as fortunate that in commenting in" our last on the action taken by the Good, Templars in relation to Mr. Richmond, of the Scotia Hotel, we expressed our Views hypothetically. Our readers must be aware that there is a kind of infallibility about the editorial sanctum which, when once it gives a decision, cannot be t]uestioi:ed, and no amount of facts and explanations can reverse it. We have many a time felt, when the facts were against the editorial view, it was so much the worse for the facts. Something like this impression ha 3 been revived in our mind by the manner our Dunedin contemporaries have treated the explanation of the Good Templars, in trying an action to test the validity of Mr? Richmond's license as granted by his Honor despite the forms of law. They gave them credit for nothing but acting from petty motives, and from personal feeling; whereas the Good Templars, through Mr. Jago, explain that it was from no personal feeling, but

Bimply to test the Superintendent's action. In thus acting as a vigilence committee on the constitutional action of the Superintendent they have dbne good service to the country. It is not in general without good reason that certain forms have been established in the administration of the Government, and they ought not to be lifehtly ignored. . If the forms give inlet to injustice or are unnecessarily circuitous, by all means let them be amended ; but it is not for the head of the province to Bet fast and loose by them. The only thing that can be urged on behalf of the Superintendent is that the meeting of the Justices had lapsed from which the required report should have been made to him. But why did the Justices not meet? We may be wrong, but yet it is not withdut a little data that we risk thd explanation that the Justices had not been instructed by the Attorney General as to their powers during the transition state between the old Ordinance and the new ; and if so, they acted with commendable caution, which makes the mess made by the Superintendent's rashness stand out in glaring contrast. If such action of the Superintendent should be repeated in any other similar Case, we have no hesitation in saying it would lead to the greatest confusion ; and so far from the Good Templars being condemned, they are entitled to the thanks of the country. Moreover, Mr. Richmond being a party to such informality and illegality, only that the decision of the Magistrate's has gone against him, we consider not entitled to that sympathy which the press has shown him.

The sale of land by public auction at the Lawrence District Land Office yesterday, and two similar sales at which we were present years ago at Roxburgh, have convinced us beyond all doubt that the system of disposing of the Crown lands of this province by auction is, so far as settling the country with an industrious population is concerned, ruinous in the extreme. At Roxburgh the whole of the Island Block of 2500 acres, and the whole of the Mount Benger Block of 1900 acres, with the exception of a few insignificant sections, were purchased by Mr. Clark's agent, and at the oale yesterday the 4000 acre block, lately thrown open in the vicinity or To pi mui T was sold, we may say in toto, to Captain Mackenzie, who was present at the sale ■with a bag stuffed with as many bank notes as would have purchased all Tuapeka. The present system of disposing of the Crown lands may, for a time, serve the purpose of filling the coffers of the Treasury, but it will never be the means of facilitating settlement, although that is the ostensible object set forth by the Government, The sooner the price of land disposed of by public auction is raised from £1 to £5 an acre, and the sooner the deferred payment system is greatly extended, the better for the province.