The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JULY 20, 1885. THE LAND LAWS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2046, 20 July 1885, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JULY 20, 1885. THE LAND LAWS.

It is to b.B regretted that there is apparently no member of the House who considered it worth while to challenge the statements of the Minister of Lands and Mr Kolleston when the Land Bill was brought up to be read a second time. The land question is of older date than even civilization, and one would think that sufficient time had elapsed since it came into existence to allow a fair idea on the subject to lie formed. It is generally admitted that it is to the advantage of a new country, which possesses large areas of land that are to be settlsd, to have stable la.wis.ofl the subject. In New Zealand, however, legislators seem to think different. It ha? been the practice for every new Minister of to bring down a schema of his own, and to amend the Land Act accordingly. Mr RoLiESTOff, who held the portfolio for a good number of yeais, introduced various changes and experiments, in which he seemed to delimit. His successor, Mr Ballance, appears, for a wonder, to be of the same opinion, for he is following in his footsteps. His Land Bill is wholly and solely a con-, solidating measure, Judged by the present state of the law the colony nuiy

be said to possess no laud regulations worth speaking of. The whole responsibility of administering it has been thrown on tb« Land Boards, who have the choice of selling for cash in hrge or small blocks, or on deferred payments, or to let on perpetual lease with—save the mark—a right of purchase. In the South large areas are also let for depasturing purposes. Now, all this is not calculated to promote settlement. The .law is not so framed that the Land Boards can be guided by it as to what they should do with any given quality of land, and we therefore find cash, deferred payment, and perpetual leasee sections all in one block. If the one fails, the other is supposed to make some show of progress. All this is nothing more nor less than the very worst type of experimentalising, and it is calculated to do serious injury to 'the colony. If these two self->:on-stituted authorities on the land question have no better idea of their duties than this, that they must try every system under the sun at the same time, then the sooner they cease meddling with it the better. Parliament might find them a subject over which they could compliment each other that would cost the colony, nothing. .