SPECIAL TELEGRAMS.

Evening Star, Issue 7450, 20 February 1888, Page 4

SPECIAL TELEGRAMS.

INVERCARGILL. l-Timi ai;v 16. Application has been made by miners from Alexandra South for mining areas on the beach at Bushy I’eint, some miles from Invercargill. Welmau’s dredge is to be used in working the leases. Cold Las been obtained in that locality lor years past. Harvesting has been started in several eases, but it will be fully a month late throughout the district. At the I’oliee Court a youth of.seventeen years, charged with drunkenness, was cautioned and discharged. In reply to the Bench, the boy said he had never been drunk before. He got the liquor from three hotels. The Bench expressed the opinion that those who supplied him with liquor were as much to blame as the ollemler John Pomeroy, ten years of age, was charged with using obscene language. from the evidence it appeared that accused was driving a horse and trap, and that ho was in such a drunken state that Constable Rutledge was proceeding to stop him, when he whipped up the horse, and, turning round, made use of some very offensive language. Accused pleaded that he had been given some drink, and, not being used to it, was drunk at the time, and remembered nothing of the occurrence. The Bench said they had no option of lining the accused, and he would therefore be sent to gaol for seven days, to bo kept apart from other prisoners. The lad had previously served a sentence of six months for stealing. In an article on the Land Act, the ‘ Southland News’ says that the legislation of last session went a long way in the direction of simplifying acquisition and bringing the price more in accordance with the altered condition of the Colony. It was, in fact, a recognition that old values could he no longer maintained, and that if settlement were to go on satisfactorily reductions must be made. What the olfeet will be remains to bo seen. Meanwhile, results probably not contemplated by the Minister of Lands demand attention. As a typical case, that of a settler at Seaward Bush may be cited. He, not long ago, took up a section on deferred payments at 2os per aero. The land adjacent, and of equal quality, is now reduced to 12s Od per acre. Is ho to be mulcted in the difference ? It is evident that if he were to avail himself of the clause of the Act enabling him to acquire a Crown grant by completing his improvements and paying up the balances of his instalments, his land, minus improvements, would be worth no more than that alongside it. This is manifestly unfair to the settler, who, if he struggles on, will be crippled in his exertions by the pressure of a double liability. The new comers holding an equal quantity of land would, under the circumstances, perhaps be even more entitled to a remedy than those deferred-payment selectors who were impelled, under the excitement of the auction room, to givedouble or treble the actual value of land for cultivation. The expediency, on public grounds, of extending relief to that class has been admitted, and it should weigh with the Government in considering the question that deferred-payment instalments partake somewhat of the nature of rent. They have before them the example of the Legislature of Great Britain, which has of late years interposed between the landlord and tenants for an adjustment of rent. The reasons for this interference with the somewhat mythical rights of the subject were, national ones. It was felt that to use the powers of the law hacked by military force to exact rentals agreed to he paid in times of prosperity would bn to inflict a terrible injury upon a large section of the population, to paralyse industry, and create untold distress. Hence the maxims of those stern economists who insist that a “ bargain’s a bargain ” all the world over, and would insist upon its fulfilment to the letter regardless of consequences, were ignored and much misery avoided. What had been done in the Old Country upon a large scale might well l)e done here upon a small one. Considerable interest was taken yesterday over the election of a licensing committee for Avenal. This is a small suburban borough adjacent to Invercargill. The only house in it was recently closed. The fight was to decide whether or not it should bo relicensed. The temperance party put up a ticket of five ; their opponents ditto. The result was a victory for the latter, whose principal object was to secure the license fee to the borough, to the small revenue of which it is regarded as a welcome addition.