THE NEW HUNDREDS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 359, 27 May 1874, Page 3

THE NEW HUNDREDS.

We very much question the wisdom or expediency of. selling the proposed new Hundreds. Indeed, from our point of view, these sales will be positively injurious to the public weal. We have a lively recollection of the recent sales at Glenkenich and M'Nab's, when entire blocks were purchased by individual squatters, and the settlement of those parts of the country was thereby retarded for at least a century. It requires no prophet to foresee that the same will happen in regard- to these new Hundreds, and thus eighty thousand acres of the choicest land in Otago, which should be dotted with the smiling homsteads of scores of sturdy settlers, will be severed from the public estate, to become the private sheepwalks of the adjacent runholders. For the power of the purse is irresistible. Let any seeker for a home try the experiment of bidding for a desirable Becfcion, and it will surely run up to such a price that he and his fellows will retire in disgust and despare from the auction-room — leaving a clear field to the monopolist. And thus the State suffera in a double sense. Settlement is prevented, and the public estate is sacrificed for a price far less than its real value.

And thus the game goes on. Little by little, but with undeviating certainty, the finest portions of the united Provinces of Otago and Southland are being alienated without any sufficient compensation, either existent or in perspective. Of course, the old excuse comes in, and in the purblind eyes of the multitude it is like charity, covering many sins. Public works must be prosecuted. Well, public works are desirable, no doubt. But to sacrifice every hope of the future prosperity of the country for a present fictitious prosperity (as we hold is now being done^, is to prefer the glittering shadow to the solid substance, and the results cannot be but disastrous. — " Southern Mercury. '*

The steamship Northumberland arrived in Hobson'p Bay. on the 6th instant from London, .after having made ft splendid passage of 51 days 18 bouts from Ply-; mouth to Port Philip heads. On her last voyage to England she was in lame for the February wool sales, and has made the two passages from Melbourne and back again in four months and 27 days.

On the 25th iust. the Auckland races came off. The weather was wet, and there was only a thin attendance. Autumn Handicap : Batter, 1 ; Parawhenua, 2 ; Golden Crown, 3. Discord bolted, and Batter won by three lengths. The Champagne Stakes was a walk over for the Bird. Selling Stakes : Never Miss, 1 ; Bundarra, 2. Trial Stakes : Bismark, 1 ; Ranga, 2.