The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News, and the Echo. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1879.

Auckland Star, Volume X, Issue 2939, 15 September 1879, Page 2

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News and the Morning News, and the Echo.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1879.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong tha needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the eood that we can

The emigration of English farmers from Yorkshire to Texas is a matter which opens up important considerations for this colony at the present juncture. "While our AgentGeneral has been instructed to suspend the granting of free passages for nominated immigrants, except in the case of domestic servants, the American agents are offering tempting inducements in the form of cheap land and other concessions in order to attract the agricultural population of Great Britain to Canada and Soubh America. These inducements are strengthened by the prevailing agricultural depression at home, consequent on a sequence of bad seasons and the large imports of American grain, which have caused a withdrawal of gold from England. Tho English farmer is now brought face to face with an entirely new set of conditions, produced by hostile tariffs, the progress of mechanical invention, and the growth of new communities. While American farming is inexpensive, and fertile land can be obtained in Illinois and Texas at from 2s to a dollar an acre, English farming has become very costly, and the farmer not only has na security of tenure, but labours under grave restrictions in tbe application of scientific inventions to the cultivation of the land which he rents. We find from latest American papers to hand that there are annually produced for exportation to Europe 30,000,000 bushels of wheat, equal to the total yield of the English harvest, in addition to 270,000,000 bushels of Indian corn. The English agriculturalists are being beaten out of the market, rents are falling, farms beiug abandoned, no tenants replacing those who vacate the properties, many tenants paying only a moiety of their rent, a great and alarming decrease in the productive power of the country, an enormous exportation of gold to America, general depression, and the Nemesis of a large reduction in the incomes of the landowners, whose greed hns been one of tho chief causes of the calamity. In tho midst of this distress the English fanners, in spite of that attachment to the soil and repugnance to emigration which is the characteristic of tbe agricultural classes in England, arc casting about for new homes and weighing the comparative! advantages and inducements offered by Amorica and ♦ho ..nlniiic-.8. .lit ia a ftiflt yihieh flosni-vng

are the pioneers in an exodus of this kind are the flower of the agricultural class. Like the sturdy adventurers who led the van of colonisation in Australia and New Zealand, they are animated by a spirit of self-reliance, energy, and industry. They are not the apathetic and timid who drift hopelessly downwards in the stream of poverty and depression, but the practical, clear-sighted and prudent, who realise what is left to them from the general wreck as the nucleus of another home under brighter prospects in a new land. These small capitalists, with practical agricultural knowledge and experience.are the very colonists who are wanted in this colony to cultivate the millions of acres of lands that are now lying waste and unproductive.

Ho fur, however, Sir Julius Vogel does not appear to have used any exertions to divert this stream of emigration to New Zealand. Naturally the English farmer, without adequate knowledge of the superior advantages offered by New Zealand, ignorant of the hardships und dangers of climate and frontier lite in Canada and Texas, prefer.) the shorter passages, ami the comparatively cheap land, which he is led to hope will make the least inroads upon his little capital. The right tiling to do at the present moment is to place fully and clearly before the English emigrant the superior advantages offered by New Zealand as a lield for settlement, it may be assumed almost as a certainty that the English farmer possesses no better knowledge of the trials, hardships, and expense he will have to encounter ill reaching the frontiers of Texas, of the instability of the institution?, the lawless uud desperate character of much of the population, the prccariousuess of the markets, and their extreme distance, than the unfortunate emigrants to Brazil, who were brought back ruined in pocket and health to England, after a precarious existence of a few months in thomalariousjungles ofthatwild country. It should be carefully impressed upon the English farmers who contemplate emigrating that land of good quality in New Zealand is comparatively cheap, that access to it is easy and cheap, with the corresponding advantages cf a proximate market ; that the institutions are practically simihir to those existing in England, while the social conditions are such that any man with habits of self-reliance, industry, thrift and perseverance, can in the space of a few years wiu his way to independanuc, and the more easily where capital and experience arc thrown into the scale. Were the relative advantages of Texas and New Zealand clearly, placed before the English farmer, they would not hesitate for a moment in their choice of new homes.

With a view of affording full information as to the area of land available for settlement in the Provincial District of Auckland, and the system upon which land is obtainable, we publish the following table, courteously furnished by D. A. Tole, Esq., Commissioner of Crown Lands :— Approximate Return of Unsold Lands in tho Provincial District of Auckland.

The total area of Crown lands in the l'ro viucial District of Auckland available to be dealt with under existing land laws is about 2,516,000 acres, but in addition to this there are several extensive tracts of country, amounting in the aggregate to about 2,000,000 acres, which are in process of acquisition and will shoitly be placed under the administration of the Waste Lands Board. An area of about 978,000 acres is also about to be leased from the natives, and being for the moat part land adopted for purely agricultural purposes, will no doubt be disposed of in due course in sections suitable for small sheep-runs. There arc four methods of acquiring laud in this district.

1. By purchase at public auction at an upset price of £1 per acre, no area ottered being less than 20 or more than 320 acres. 2. On the deferred payment system, at an upset price of £3 per acre, payable halfyearly in advance in amounts equal to onetentli of the price of the land, the minimum and maximum areas being the same as under the first Bystem. This system of disposing of land will shortly receive a tiial in the Te Aroha block at the Thames, in the l'uhi block near Tauraoga, aud at Hokianga aud Whaugareij where land of great fertility exists, with the accompanying advantages of large proximate populations, easy transit, and good markets.

3. Land may be acquired under the Homestead System, the Provincial District of Auckland being the only Dart of the colouy, with the exception o( M'estland, which otters similar inducements, The system euables land to be acquired/ree of cost upon the selector agreeing to fullil certain easy conditions as to occupation and improvements. This system oilers peculiar advantages to men of limited capital who desire to reserve it for bringing their lav d into cultivation.

4. Third class, ordepasturing lands, may be leased in areas not exceeding 10,000 acros, the minimum price of these lauds in the case of sale being 5s per acre, while the rental iv leases is at the discretion of the Board, usually from £1 to £1 10a per 1,000 acres per annum. In addition to the lands obtainable under the four systems above enumerated there aro> immense tracts of valuable timber iv the North.

A plan of settlement has bceu mooted by Mr Vesey Stewart, the founder of the special settlement ;u Katikati, after experience of the working of the system upon which that place was established, and we think his suggestions arc worthy of consideration as to tlieir applicability to the circumstances of emigrants like the Yorkshire farmers. Mr Stewart baa found that the chief drawback to these special settlements is that they lack the practical knowledge of colonization, and of the expedients which enable the hardy pioneer settler to^overcomc the hardships incidental to the foundation of a homo in a now country. To supply this deficiency Mr Stewart proposes a judicious combination of practical farmers from home.each possessed of some capital, with the sons of settlers already in the Colony, the latter performing the rough work of preparation iv anticipation of the arrival of their future partners, so as to lighten the task of the new comers and to ensure some degree of comfort for them.The suggestion is imminently practical and deserving of careful consideration.

Better counsels have prevailed at Chinemuri, and the two desperadoes, Pakara and Te Kpihii, are to be surrendered for trial by the Supreme Court. 'We arc informed in the telegram that the arrangement of this matter will occupy some days, but that there is no doubt as to the ultimate result. Old Tukukino appears to have behaved] handsomely in this wretched business, having at the eleventh hour been troubled with some serious misgivings a* to the consequences of a refusal to surrender the men. The judgment of the Hunanga, which we publish iv cxtenso in another column, is exceedingly illogical and contradictory when examined by the light of English jurisprudence, and in laying down the principle that a ilugrant otlence against law can be condoned by compensation to the injured paity iv the shape of land the Hunanga have been merely guided by the old native custom of "utu." The time has come when turbulent natives should be taught to understand that considerations of British law arc paramount to all barbarous customs, aud if this cannot be accomplished by the suaviter in modo it should be done by the fortiter in re.

County. Area. County. Area. MonRonul .. 210,000 Wuiknto .. 105,000 Hokiiinga .. 300,000 Waipa .. .. 7,000 Hayotlalands 155,001) Piako .. .. 30,('00 VVhanKarcl .. 231,000 Thames .. 310.000 Hobson .. 75,000 Coromandol .. 84,000 Kodney.. .. 00,000 TaurauKa .. 10S.OOO Waltemata .. 71.0U0 WhakiUano .. 171.010 Kden .. .. M0 Cook .. .. 130,000 Manukau .. 78.000 Wairoa.. .. 2-20,000 Raglan.. .. 150,000 EastTaupo .. J50