The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1878.

Waikato Times, Volume XI, Issue 904, 9 April 1878, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1878.

Equal and exact justice to all ui^ii,; Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. : *.-.•* * . • * .* Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, ■ - ; Unawed by influence and unbribed by : gain.--. ? _ :

the laud is not even yes extingtiiahed. havo Jievei* jet been JPpmnrgcl ■ wacito lamia by the •Cfro^ii. : So -fur, (hen, the allocation i w e lSjL 150 ' r i: ' IOGS Ml> Broomhull, on 111 ' Wserve consideration at tho> Ji|p(lß op|lio Colony. JTe lias nof f^ llec^Sys part of the coutvuc# haviu^Hi' the matter of payment* : so^if h t an extension of time till 1883. Tlio Government-, therefore, has no difficulty m the course before k. There^i^.iiQ.Jii;each r . of. ..faith towards th'e promoter of the solieiiie, for h e himself has been a party to breaking ..faith, and the contract itsulf is clearly an illegal one on the par b of the Waste Lands:- Board. Indeed Mr Sheehan has admitted so much himself, and the question fairly D;\rrows itself into an issue, not whether Me Brooinhnll shall or shall not lnive the land, but. -w he theiy. having fairly lost all title to it, through the inability of the Waste iAnds Board to grant it m. the first instance, he c;in, afler hiving himself backed out of : • his original arrangement with respect to the payment, claim, auy ooinpensation for bss. The Government may fairly, we think, pat their veto on the sale of the land ; we cannot indeed sco how they can do otherwise m the face of the subsection of clause 19. The public iutercs*s demand that they should do this rather than seek a loophole by which they may give the benefit of the doubt to a mere speoul iting trafficker m the waste lands of the Colony, whose astuteness had enabled him to steal a march on the solons of our Auckland Waste Lands Bdard. Nor does justice to the people of 'the Thames demand less. The very Unds which are included m the Breomhall grant weie years since promised by the Government to be thrown open for sectiement when available. As we have poin'.ed out on former occasious, there are very many small capitalists desirous of settling m the Upper Thames country, many of whom have been clinging to the varying fortunes of the goldfield for years past with thi3 particular object iv view. These men do not ask for the land, like Brdonihall, for less than a third of its 'value, but aro prepared to pay a fair price for it, and common justice demands that their claim shall receive as failattention as his. We trust that the people of Grahamstown will agitate; the matter until they receive a full assurance of redress from the Government.

The people at the Thames are not content to sit quietly down timl sco tlieir heritage., swept into the lap of a company of London speculators. The grant cf GO,OOO acres of land to Mr Broomhall is found to include every avaihwblt acre of first class land for settlement m the vicinity of ihe Thames. Even the Wairakau block ol 10,000 acres, which was always looked upon as specially suitable fov settlement from Grahamstown is now found to be included m the Broomhall grant. A large ptsblic meeting of the inhabitants of Grahamstowu, held m the Academy of Music, unanimously passed resolutions deprecating the completion of the Broomhall contract, and calling upoD ike Government to sefc apart from the first lands available sufficient to meet the requirements of those upon the Thames desirous of settling upon it. Now, both the first and after por- : tion of the resolution passed afc the Thames will have tue hearty concurrence of the general public. There is no doubt whatever but that tho Brooiiiha.il contract was a mistake from the first. Whether the Government, afc one time, and the Auckland Waste Lands Board, at another, were swayed by strong outside pressure (the one, m inserting 1 the clause m the Waste Lands Act of 187G, which empowers the Governor to make a special sale of land to "John Broomlmll, Esq.;" the other, by their action wljich .handed over to him the best lands m the whole Upper Thames district at a merely nominal price) ; or, whether both were led away by the dazzling prospect of introducing British capital and immigrants on no extensive a scale, i# hard to say. Perhaps, both iuflnences way have tended to the result At a«y ps!te r m the ease of the ; . Waste Lands i Board, thafc body has exceeded its powers. Th<is« power?,- by the Ist cub-section of ti*e lf)th clause of the Act, were expressly Jimned to lands which had been, at tii-u jtiine of so dealing with tliem, brought! •Jttixler the control uf the Waste Lauds Board of the district m which they are situated^-. Tin's «ra« uotthe case with the lands allotlej by jLhe Auckland "Waste. .'Lauds to Ih'i Bjfoomhall. So far from this being ' co, fclie native title over much of-