The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1877.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 742, 20 March 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 1877.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political • * • • # Eere shall the Presi the Pkople's right maintain, Unawed by influence and unbribed by gain.

We comment to the noticed of our readers the extraot from the report of the Waste Land Board's meeting of Monday, which we reprint m another column. It contains a small paragraph which is deserving of more than passing considsration. Mr Prichard did not pay the purchase money for the 1 lands iv Waikafco. This was to have been paid m London on the Ist inst, but it transpired that it had not been paid. Exactly so. If Mr Prichard could have obtained the land on credit, he would doubtless have dealt with it m the London market as a matter of speculation, but he drops it as too big a thing to carry out when saddled with half the purchase money down; and the Waste Land Board drop the subject just as quietly. It is no more a [ leasant or profitable thing for them to discuss, then it was a negotiable scheme for Prichard to float. And between Prichard and Broomhall it is only a question of degree. The latter is probably a bigger man and with a stronger back, but m either case the land is purchased not with a view of settling it, but of making money out of the transaction. The English speculating public wanted a new Bensation. It was tired of apocryphal mines and dubious railway schemes and still more doubtful banking companies. Special settlement estates m New Zealand had all the elements of a taking nature, likely to become the rage at home. There was the land, and land, m England, carries j with it a certain amount of solidity and weight ; there was the model community, too, to be established ; and above all there was money m it. And doubtless but for the pressure put J upon the Waste Lands Board by a portion of the press, our London friends would have made money out of these colonial lands, and the Auckland Waste Lands Board would hare had any number of further applications. English communities would have found a ready demand for their refnse population with which to fulfill the conditions of purchase, and our waste lands, instead of being taken up by bona fide capitalists and others, for purposes^of genuine settlement, would have^ passed into the hands of English speculators, and the Waste Lands Board would have found itself, like the Vicar of Wakefield's son, Moses, who sold his horse for a gross of green spectacles, m possession of some shiploads of very questionable immigrants, m return for the pick of the public estate of the district. We warned the Board at the time now this would be, that m all other cases than that of the Broomhall application, the granting ajpre-emptive right to land was not only morally wrong, but actually illegal. In the case of the Broomhill special settlement, a special act was passed m the late Session of the Assembly, authorising the gale m such form, but ifc is contrary to all principles of equity and justice that any Waste Land Board should exercise the power of offering the exclusive right of purchasing any portion of the public estate to any individual, either on his own behalf, or on that of a company. Once admit the right, and the way is opened to the exercise of any amount of jobbery on the part of a Board, or of individual members of it, and even it there were no possibility of this, a great injustice would be done to the colonists if mere speculating companies were permitted to come m and pbk out the eyes of the public estate, leaving only the balance of the land to be selected from. It is, as we have said, contrary to all principles of justice that any portion of the public estate should be alienated by arrangement with the Waste Lands Board until such lands have been thrown equally, open to selection by the general public, and this principle will, we trust, m all future transactions of the Board, not be allowed to be lost sight of. la the present

instance not only have the public at large been made the snffererg, but a special injustice has been inflicted upon those who, with Mr Rowo and Mr Payne, at the Thames, were promised by a Minister of the Crown, m his official capacity, that room should be found for their special settlement on this very ground now snatched from them by a stranger. The Waste Lands Board has denied to men who have borne the burden and heat of the day, who -with their families have hung on to the Thames for years m expectation of being enabled to take up this land — the Board, we say, has denied to these men their right and lavished it on strangers; it has taken the children's bread and caste it to the dogs. This is the injustice we complain of m the action of the "Waste Lands Board. It is something more than simply making a bad bargain m the disposal of the public estate, m exchanging a rich tract of fertile land for a tithe of its value, with a few ship-loads of pauper immigrants thrown m, which a departure from the strict principle of straightforward dealing ia the public lands involves. It inflicts & positive injustice on those here, who m all right and fairness have a prior claim to consideration. Still even as a matter of business the principle is a bad one. In the case of the tract parted with to Mr Broomhall, the colony has sold some of its most valuable lands for fifteen shilling per acre, for this is virtually what the purchase money and the amount to be forfeited, m case of non-fulfillment of conditions amounts to. Mr Firth m a former meeting of the Board proposed to double this latter amount m future cases. The question, however, is not one of degree. It is not whether a speculator shall pay five shillings, more or less, for the price of the lands thus arranged for with the Waste Lands Board, but whether it shall be permitted to such Board to grant to any one a privilege which is none other than that of a pre-emptive right m the purchase of the public estate. Mr Prichard has relieved the Board from a very awkward position by his neglect to complete the purchase as arranged, and the Board if it is wise, will drop, along with Mr Prichard, all future attempts at dealing with the public lands after such a fashion.