The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3796, 14 September 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 1883.

It is a hopeful sign of the times in New Zealand (says an Australian contemporary) that the proprietors of some of the greater estates have begun that bursting-up process which is prophesied for all good agricultural lands through which railways pass. The New Zealand and Australasian Land Company, upon no less than five stations in Canterbury, Otago, and Southland, have picked out some of tho most fertile portions and sold them at satisfactory prices to bonafide farmers. The prices, as quoted in the latest papers received, vary from two to ten pounds per acre. The lowest of these prices in Otago would be twice the first cost of the land, the highest in Canterbury about five times that amount. J3oth therefore "to holders of shares in the company would be most profitable rates. To the farmers also tho purchase should bo a profitable and sound bargain. If tho money

is paid down at onco the crops will doubtless return good interest ; and if the purchase is on deferred payments, thrift, industry, and fair seasons will enable the calls to be met with punctuality, and tho

freehold estate to be ultimately secured. It is a noticeable fact that on most of these

stations the company carried on farming to a considerable extent beforo the time of railways in New Zealand, but cost of transit and dcamoss and scarcity of labor cut their 'profits so fine that they sowed clover and u-rass-scod upon their fallows and reverted ?o sheep. Doubtless sheep have paid them well enough, but all tho sheep a very good acre will carry will hardly pay interest upon £10. It is a loss to any country indeed that such land, to a market, should be held for tho sheep whilo men with ploughs are aiixitffes to step in and take possession. And unfortunately there is too much land so held in every ono of the Australian colonies, the result of wholesale and indiscriminate sales by the Government, and of a system that sought diligently to collect revenues, but concerned itself very little with the establishing of people. Tho work which is to be done now by the land company should have been done in tho first instance by tho New Zealand Government. Of course it is better that it should be done now than not at all ; but surely it is a matter for regret that a company, with at least as many shareholders in. Great Britain as in Australasia, should do the work the colonies failed to do, and tako about a million sterling for doing it. It will be noted that the same process is about to begin with the Peel River Company in Now England, and will probably spread in many parts of the colony. We shall soo

land given of (he grace and bounty of his Majesty in very early times, or sold by the marvellously slirewcd Ministers of days, re-sold at rates that will enable its former proprietors to maintain splendid establishments in Europe, and to forget that they ever held interest in so remote a wilderness as Australia. We may even see 10,000 acres sold for £50,000 cash, may soo tho seller pocket his cash and book his passage, and yet know that our Government may have to wait for years for tho moiety of tho first purchase money still unpaid, and only to bo paid at the rate of ono shilling per acre per annum, with five per cent, interest added. Of courao wo shall bo satisfied with these things ; indeed, thoro is no reason for dissatisfaction. The chango will bo for the bettor, and to growl about waste of legitimate State interest in the transaction is but equivalent to fretting over what might have been.