EARLY WASTE LAND SALES.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXXII, Issue 5708, 8 January 1876, Page 3

EARLY WASTE LAND SALES.

To the Editor : Sir, — I have frequently heard it asserted by well-informed persons, that the old identities, as the old colonists are called got the town lands for a song, or a trifle. But the following extracts from the Gorirnmmt Gazette of the first sale of Crown lands at Auckland, April 19fch and 20fch, IS 11, at Government House, Mr. William Mason, Superintendent of Public Works, was auctioneer ;

The highest pi ice #i\en |>er acre was sEl,COS ; lowest, <L2'3~> : average of the whole s.ile, £105 per acre. Snch were the piocccds of the iirst land sale, and the unprecedented prices unknown in the annals of colonisation, because it was the spot selected by Governor Captain William Hobson, 11. N., for the Seat of Government, and confirmed by Loid Stanley, Secretary for the colonies in 1842, but through the envy of the old New Zealand Company and their tail, never rested until they induced the Governor, Sir George Grey, to remove the seat of Government to shaky Wellington, and who assented to the famous u Weld lesolution, which lie might so easily have vetoed — ' ' Tihoa !" -I am, &c. , A COLOXlisT OF IS 40. P.S. — It was said at the time of the laud sale that il cost the Government 4d. per acre from the Maoiis.

1 Public allotments Government ollieers . Lois. \. it. i". ■ Sold fur 1KI .",'» 1 7 . 4.21,4'") 0 0 11 5 J 11 2,970 S 9 Total ..£24,475 17 9