CROWN LAND SALES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5123, 6 September 1895, Page 3

CROWN LAND SALES.

[to the editor.]

Sir,-As we are on tho eve of another sale of Crown Lands—l rufiT lo t!ii! Awarua Block—permit me, through the medium of you;I vaiu-iblu columns, to mako a IV ir.a.rk.- re the upset price, et, 1 . c:: i Lfcd for Government Bush Lan : iu general. In prefacing my remark■. I would like lo point out that no one knows better than the Wellington Laud Board—or really the Gov-ernment-that the majority of the people believe it to be infallable, and incapable of tho crime of not holding them on a level at a land sale. And all those people who have paid dearly for Crown Lauds, or those who pay rack-rent for them, are exceedingly chary about denouncing and condemning the system; because the fact of getting the back country occupied enhances their own chance of selling out and regaining their freedom. This is tho reason intending selectors got such glowing accounts of bush land from selectors, and " Crown Lands Agents." In the face of the fact that thousands of Crown tenants are iu arrears with their rent, and will have to surrender their holdings on account of having paid too much for them; I would like to know " why our virtuous Laud Board persists in demanding an extortionate, rack-renting, and ruinous price for all tho Crown Lands they have to dispose of?" Is it because the Wellington Land Board has resolved itself into a jobbing office in the department of the Minister of Lands ? Or is it because they must have money, or burst ? It is certainly not with a view of promoting prosperous settlement of the land ; so it must be with the object of coining revenue. Fancy paying £1 12s Gd per aero for the Awarua Block. A block of land ranging from 2000 to 3000 above the level of the sea, covered with heavy rimu bush, It is what the member for Masterton—when speaking on the j Periodical Revaluation of Lands Bill —characterised as the" refuse of tho' country—the land that would not be i taken up in former years." Now, suppose a person takes up 500 acres i of the Awarua Block at £1 12s (id per acre, and fully improves it. Say | lie spends £3OOO on it, and has the j best luck possible. His gross income then for the first twenty years will not be more than £IOO per annum, or i about three per cent, on his money; And I question very much whether' after twenty years he will ever make j more than this sum off 500 acres. j I would like to ask oui:Land Board if it is right to charge such a price PI Is it -right to sell men land at a price