THE WASTE LANDS BOARD AND VOLUNTEER SCRIP.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 764, 10 May 1877, Page 3

THE WASTE LANDS BOARD AND VOLUNTEER SCRIP.

There must be an end to everything human, and our patience has at last become utterly exhausted with the Waste Lands Board and its doings. We have .on many occasions previously called the attention of the public to the constitution and proceedings of that museum of fossilised humanity. We have shown that, neither Waikato nor the East Coast, nor Poverty Bay, nor the important district of the Thames, are represented on the Board. We have drawn attention to the fact that some ot the members are the proprietors of very large tracts of country, and are, by the class feel-

ing necessarily engendered by such possesaiotf, -' incapable' 6l 'dealing m an* enlightened and liberal" spirit with/the all-important laWd 'question. It was reserved for the Waste Lands Board, m its eagerness to puff itself out with importance,. in dealing, with so-called " English capitalists," to make; a contract with IJroonihall for, the sale of the Aroha before an acre of; 'land was available. ■'■:■•■ We > -denounced the Broomhall business from" thfeijommencement, and warned; the sages of the Waste Lands Board tKat trouble would come of it. "We; now/t^l them that if they had left; Broomhall alone, and not have got, their silly heads .turried' by "English capitalists", (heavensaye the mark),' the Colony woriid' 'now be m the; peaceable possession pf the .whole of the Aroha. Are men fit t*> be entrusted witjh tbe.management of our: land affairs who are so grossly ignorant, or unmindful of Maori opinion I as' t^ self'land at a Jhigher price thiin thatf paid the natives before those natives had giver* them a title ' to it. If the Upper Thames is a sealed country for 'the next' tw6 years, we shall have nothing to thank for it but the gross^stupidity of thetWa&te Lands Board* But all thia is'Matter we have touched on, heto^^Qjiv' object now is to, ask tiie- Waste Lands Board one question, 'and we intend to have' it answered. Have lihey^bee^r parties' ;'tQ ■permitting: f Vdiuntee^scrip ; generally to be ex-' k^ercised'oyer;, .confiscated land? If so, .they, have' i again been guilty of the gravest : indiscretion.; Are the Waste Lands Board aware that the niajority, of the £11,000 worth of scrip now afloat is m the hands of. land < speculators, and that there is about as much chance of any one scrip being exercised m the purchase of land settlement by the original holder as there is of Mi. J. 0. Firth putting Mata-Mata or Turangaurana up for auction to-morrow. Do they know that, m Waikatoj where the efforts of, the. settlers have raised :land to a price which will , cause almqst.the. ' whole of the scrip to; be exercised over tins' district,/ only forty of these scrip have been issued f Are 1 -'they ( aware- that at the next land sale here, 1 jyhen settlers wish tq.^uyr .Jand, which-, lies. ,into> their own improved . properties,, and thus -extend their producing .powers the speculators who have bought up this scrip at a tnerel^ I'nominal1 'nominal figure will step • m! and outbid-any offer resi-; dents can possibly make ? We; wonder M£ fhte " big " men- ohTthe Waste Lands' ' B6ard ; 'knew that another "big " ", mam held any, quantity of these scrip, when ;they gavesa right of selection ooverr r confiscated lands and thereby doubled the value of all those documents. ' 1f ,8,11 these considerations occurred to the Board, they perpetrated a monstrous in-' iquity.ifTthey were iristrumentaHn getting any proclamation issued which could bring aboutcso jinfair a state of matters. If these considerations did not occur to them, then hay« they again proved themselves utterly" unfit- to : deal with such a question as the land question, which underlies almost every political combination, and vitally affects .the future prosperity of this Colony* .