CROWN LANDS DEPARTMENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3753, 26 July 1883, Page 4

CROWN LANDS DEPARTMENT.

Tho folloAving report upon the Crown Lands Department for the year ending March 31, 1883, has been laid before Parliament :— Tho history of the dealings Avith the CroAvn lands for the tAvelve months is similar to preceding years, the object sought not being so much revenue as to promote settlement by a resident proprietary. The results of tho year have been that, though the cash sales havo been much smaller than the preceding year, there has baeu little or no falling off iv the number of selectors on the settlement conditions of the rural deferred - payment aud agricultural - lease systems. Several extensive sales of the leases of runs in Otago, Southland, and Nelson have taken place. These sales close for a feAV years any further extensive dealings with the pastoral company. The aggregate results of the year are as folloAVs: —Land sold on immediate payment—l oavu lands, 149 acres, sold to 289 purchasers; suburban lands, 1685 acres, sold to 209 purchasers; scrip, £4537 3s 3d ; cash received, £227,210 7s Gd. Land sold on deferred payments — Agricultural, 06,947 acres, sold to 484 purchasers; pastoral, 13,178 acres, sold to 16 purchasers; village settlements, 314 acres, sold to 64 purchasers; deposits on the above, and instalments from selections current from former years, £72,376 Is Bd. Agricultural leases on goldfields—4B79 acres leased to 42 selectors; rent from these and from selections current in former years, £5839. Homestead 4378 acres, selected by 38 persons : cash received, ■nit, Pastoral rents from 19,969,459 acres, hold in 1039 leases, £123,403 lis (id. Miscellaneous—Coal and mineral leases, royalties, timber licenses, kc, £5500. Total, £4,391,389 10s Bd. Tho cash sales of Crown lands, both in iirrear and receipts, for tho tAvelvo months aro considerably less than in each of the three previous years, in Avhich, singular to say, the areas sold -verc almost identical, being a little over 197,000 acres for each year. This year only 166,172 acres Avere sold, while the receipts are only £9288 less than the average of the three previous years. This is partly attributable to the stringency of the money market, and the withholding of 300,000 acres in the North Island as bonus for raihvay projects under the Acts of 1881 and 1882. Of this 50,000 acres Avero ready for settlement, but Avithbold for the above reason.

In the Forty-mile Bush 50,000 acres, and 40,000 acres Avell grassed open agricultural land in Otago, Avero surveyed and mapped. The settlement of tbe AVaimate Plains is referred to as a good illustration of the advantages of first preparing tho country by tlio opening of roads through it, and then offering it for sale cut into sections on tho conditions of deferred payment residence and cultivation, alternating AA'ith sections obtainable on immediate payments. Up to March 'it 300 sections, aggregating 24,32s acres, have been sold on deferred payments for £102,008, or an average of £1 -Is Id per acre; for cash, 40,045 acres, realising ,G100,741, or £1 Is 3d per acre; of town and suburban lands, 520 acres, realising £15,837, or a total of 71,808 acres and £309,100. Of the deferred-payment selections only 11 have been forfeited. The loading of tho land has been kept in advance of tho sales. For education endowments 113 sections, comprising 4027 acres. have been set apart for educational reserves. The area of theso reserves nOAV amounts" to 589,298 acres. Of school reserves, cemeteries, gravel-pits, recreationgrounds, 170 havo been gazetted, 3480 acres. For the Auckland Museum endowment 189 sections (comprising 210 acres) and 19 rural sections (comprising 10,276 acres) Iniyo been gazetted. The value, especially of the agricultural potion of the CroAvn lands, keeps increasing. It is therefore easy to sec that if no restriction •was placed on the sale, theprimc agricultural portions Avould be immediately brought up by Avcaltby indh'iduals and companies, to hold for after disposal at a greatly enhanced price to the settler avlioso labour is to make tho soil reproductive. The future increasing value of land in Ncav Zealand is so avcll assured that if the Crown lands were exposed for sale like so much flour or sugar the pOAverful organisation of capital Avould push the individual industrious settler aside, who Avould ncA'cr have a chance of dealing directly Avith the Lands Department for an acre of CroAvn lands ; hence tho argument for tho disposal of CroAvn lands on settlement conditions, and the justification of the Department in giving so much prominence to that Avay of dealing Avith them. The function of the Land Department is not to raiso so much revenue —it is to settle the CroAvn lands in the manner most likely to be mutually beneficial to tho settlers and the country, and to prevent as much as possible any middleman coming bctAveen the Department and tho settler. It -will, therefore, be unwise to afford facilities to anyone to acquire large areas merely to hold for after-disposal. Not that largo estates aro an evil where the possessor has tho capital and employs it in improvement of the land. On the contrary, there arc instances in nearly every land district where the drainage and reclamation of SAvamps and other waste places has been done, and could only be done, on an extensive scale or not at all, in Avhich case settlement on tho scale of a feAV hundred acres Avould have been Avholly impracticable ; but as a rule it Avill best promote tbe future settlement of the country if the remaining land is so disposed of as to ensure its occupation by a resident population bound to cultivate a certain portion as one of the conditions of holding the land. This principle is by no means iicav, and hitherto it has bad its exemplification in the system already alluded to. Up to date fully 10,000 persons have selected in all over 1,000,000 acres. After deducting the area made freehold by fulfilment of the conditions, and that forfeited, thero remain 3010 selectors on deferred payments, holding, on the 31st March last, an area of about 450,50 I acres, on Avhich £220,031 has been paid, and a further sum of £003,068 Avill accrue in future instalments. Of these 807 selectors, holding 140,908 acres, are in arrear in payment of instalments £19,273, being very nearly £22 0s odcacb, or, stated iv time, about an average of nine months in arrear of due dates Avhen the sum stated should havo been paid. Tho biAV requires prompt payment of instalments every six months, butsomeof land boards have hitherto assumed a discretion in not pushing settlers for payment under certain circumstances. This clemency has undoubtedly been carried too far in those cases where selectors have been alloAved to fall behind two and three years Avith their payments. The following is a summary of the results of the leasing system as regards Otago CroAvn lands:—Number of sections offered, 100 ; area offered, 25,011 acres; number of ■sections selected, 12; area selected, 2008 acres ; average upset price per aero of rent, 2s 7d ; average tender rent per acre, 3s-id. The total receipts from rents of runs last year were £128,403, being £54,417 , less than the receipts of the former year, due to tlio largo sum paid as aih-ance rent in that year for leases which only began on the Ist March last, aud from Avhich no rent is given in this year's returns. Similarly, the runs sold this year have paid in advance the rent for next year, so that it Avill bo the Ist March 1885 beforo all the runs luia-c got back into the normal condition of paying rent for the then current year. The rentals will then be according to the leases uoav* current and to begin on the Ist March 1881, £170,000 for 11,000,000 acres, or an average of very nearly Id per acre. Of that routal from Crown lands the Otago land district \A-ill contribute fully £100,000, and if the rents from the runs let by educational and other public institutions in that district be added, the total income from the natural pastures of tlio CroAvn and public lands of the colony Avill bo close on £200,000 a year from tho Ist March ISBS. This is a greater pastoral revenue than any of the Australian colonies can show.

Forest Tree Plantations. — Under the Forest Trees Planting Encouragement Acts of 1871 and 1872 four land-orders were issued in the Canterbury land district of a value of £2431, being a bonus of £4 per aero on COS), acres planted and groAvu according to regulations. In the Otago laud district one land-order, of a value of £237 16s, was issued for 59 acres 1 rood 32 perches planted. Adding these to Avhat was formerly reported, the total area planted for Avhich the bonus has ijeen <n*antcd is 1928 acres 1 rood 10 perches. This work is divided among three districts, of which Canterbury has 20 orders, and 1113 1 , acres planted; Otago, nine orders, and 30(1 acres 3 roods 10 pcrchei planted ; and llawkc'..

Bay, ono order, and 121 avreij planted. In 'the matter of planting forest trees, Can-toi-bury is greatly m advance of other districts of the Coloivy, for in addition to the _boA'G results the Planting Board of Canterbury continues its good work. In the h-ccles/>interior of Otago very little planting has as yet been done, but good resullo

are expected from tlie nursery established in Cardrona Valley, Lake County, by the County Council. The' Department has nearly 500,000 acres surveyed and mapped, and now before the public for selection and purchase under tho vcrious settlement conditions, and for cash an additional 150,000 acres is being mapped, and will be ready for disposal within the next two or three months and the pioneer reading in the different stages of exploratory surveys or actual formation. With regard to ether blocks in each of the eleven land the work has got into such a train that, if the essential work of reading is allowed to proceed as at present, there will be a constant supply of Crown lands kept up ready for settlement. During the twelve months ended the 31st March ISB3 the area of Crown lands was augmented by the proclamation of -12,018 acres of purchased native lands, of which 3092 acres were in the Auckland district, and 39,820 acres in tho Wellington district. There arc ono or two other native blocks in the latter district tho purchase of which is nearly completed, and when proclaimed will work in very well with adjacent Crown lands. Roads have been explored in anticipation through some of these native and Crown lands, and they can be opened out quickly whenever the time comes. The Crown Lands Guide has been found a very effective means of making known the land system of the Colony, and of attracting attention to it. Of No. 5, issued in February, 1883, 300 copies have been distributed"

The report of the Canterbury Plantations Board for the ten months ending 31st Jan., 1883, stated that the total area fenccdwas : in the Ashburton county, 313 acres ; in tho Selwyn county, 378—total, 691 acres. Tho season's Avork of 1882 comprises a further area of: in the Ashburton county, 45 acres ; in the Sehvyn county, 173 acres—total, 218 : grand total to date, 000 acres. From the Domain Nurseries in Christchurch, since 1809, there have been distributed 703,034 trees.