THE LAND QUESTION.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3119, 16 July 1867, Page 4

THE LAND QUESTION.

To the Editor of the Daily Southian Cross. Sir,— Pasting as we are through a period of great depression, and impecuniary difficulties, and believing that, to meet the times and public^ creditor, great sacrifices will require to be made, since, turn which way we will, we find shares of all descriptions dull, with a downward tendency, whilst landed property, which ought not to fluctuate in the same degree, is wbrth perhaps^nominally what it can be sold for, or what a party will pay for the same. In the old opuntry money invested on landed • property was deemed the safest security, by trusiees appointed under settlements ; and though the interest accruing would only produce some 2J per cent, per annum, still the property wa9 there, the value ascertainable, and the rent, &c, certain. Here and in the South the price of land vanes, &c, Canterbury asking £2 per acre from the immigrant and settler for the purpose of creating a land revenue, while in this provifice tue Provincial Government estimate the value of land generally at the uniform rate of 10s. per acre. These prices may appear erroneous, and proof is wantina to show, in the first instance, that the soil of Canterbury and all backlying land ,is worth £2 per acre, and in the latter case that the acreage value in this province should be fixed at 10i. per acre. . . In Great Britain, excepting certain irrigation meadows which can be flooded with sewage, &c, gra»s paddocks usually let for about £2 10s. per aore for the six months. These remarks lead one to believe that the anxiety of the General and Provincial Government to create a territorial revenue has caused, from the mode and method of acquiring landed estate, much of that dissatisfaction and soreness existing, and is possibly the true oause of the insurrectionary movements on the part of the natives. This jobbing in land by the Governments Lecame fashionable, and a habit once permitted and sanctioned induced private individuals to cut up their estates into allotments and townshipa for the purpose of making a pile. Many of these townshipa and allotments in embryo, as Bold by the Government and the auctioneers for gentlemen, are situated very similarly to the City of Eden as it appeared on paper in " Martin Chuzzlewit." Gambling in property should be controlled, and the public face set as much as possible against it. The excitement— probably the luncheon— and the competitive desire, urged men on to buy. Many good citizens of Auckland and settlers in the province there are, who would, exclaim, if asked, " Would that we had not embarked in these chimerical undertakings, or that we had waited until the requirements of the country and city urged them into existence." ' True it is, that money at present locked up in landed estate by purchasers would be very acceptable in times like the present. The value might be expected to be lessened by the tightness of the money market, but bon& fide purchasers little dreamt that their estates, when required to be sold, were worth next to nothing, probably not as much as the paper or parchment, or Crown grant, on which they are written or engrossed. This great depreciation may have arisen from causes over which the settlers themselves have little or no control, but there is a feeling of want of confidence engendered, which doubtleßS may continue and last some time longer, unless the public generally believe and see that the General and Provincial Governments are endeavouring to meet these times of impecuniosity by cutting down expenditure to the minimum compatible with the public service of the colony. AamcuLTUßisT.