THE WAIMATE PLAINS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 50, 2 October 1880, Page 2

THE WAIMATE PLAINS.

The sale of the Plains has been talked of and written about so -much and so often, that we should feel it incumbent upon us to apologise for again referring to such a hackneyed subject, if it were not that a new feature has recently cropped up in connection with it. The Government have decided to include the village settlement of Okaiawa in the land to be sold, and the conditions of the sale will be as follows :—": — " The land is classed under three schedules,- the prices being respectively J>2&i £6, and £a per acre. The land specified in the first schedule will be ' sold for cash, and the lands enumerated in the second and third schedules on deferred payments, subject to the provisions relating to suburban and rural land of Part 111. of the Land Act, 1877, and to the provisions of section nine of the Land Act 1877 Amendment Act, 1879. No person will be allowed to acquire more than one section upon either immediate or deferred payments. If there should be more than one application for any village allotment offered for cash, the said allotment will be put up to auction among the applicants, and if there should be more than one application for any small-farm allotment offered, the right to occupy the allotment will be determined by lot among the applicants only." We take this opportunity of drawing attention to the general dissatisfaction which has been expressed both by visitors to the district and by a large section of the Press throughout the colony, at the conditions of sale and the size of the sections to be offered on the Plains. It is admitted, even we b lieve by Ministers of the Crown, that a 50-acre section bought on deferred payments, not at the upset price, but at such a price as men may be induced to bid in the excitement of the auction-room, 1 is exceedingly unlikely to prove a profitable, investment to any man. We notice that this idea appears to have been partially adopted by the authorities at last, because in the conditions relative to the land at Okaiawa, if there should be more than one applicant for any small farm allotment, ib will not be put up to auction, but the ownership will be d cided by lot.

We are not prepared to admit that the sections offered on deferred payment are too small, if a man could obtain one of them near a township at or about the upset price. It is the competition for the land -which - — as the Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Provincial District of Taranaki, at the last land sale in Hawera, said — is especially to be deprecated. The conditions of sale are sufficiently onerous. The law declares that the selector must reside on his section within six months after issue of license, and must within the first year cultivate not less than one-twentieth of rural land, or one-tenth suburban land, increasing in this ratio each year up to six years, by which time he must have made substantial improvements to the value of £1 per acre on" rural land, or .£lO per acre suburban land, besides cultivating at least three-fourths. Under the circumstances, a higher price might have been put upon the deferred payment land,and rival applicants for the same section have determined the ownership by lot, instead of by auction. Even if this proposal were distasteful to the authorities, there are other courses open, by which the fierce spirit of rivalry andxeekless speculation which is developed at an open auction might he avoided. For instance, there is, we believe, what is known as the Brazilian system, which may he hriefiy described as whispered bidding. The applicants are each allowed to go up to the actioneer, who stands with his back to the buyers, and whisper one bid into his ear; the highest bidder being forthwith declared the owner. A better plan would be for rival applicants to send in sealed tenders, stating the highest price which they were prepared to give for a section, and in the event of several. tenders of the same amount being received, for the ownership to be finally determined by lot. | But one opinion has "been expressed by those gentlemen who have visited the district with a view of bidding for the cash sections. They say : " Why do not the Government give the cash buyers a fair chance ? If the land is to be offered in such small sections, a man wanting a small farm of a couple of hundred acres may buy one, or perhaps two, fifty-acre sections at a fair price ; but he is liable to he forced to ran the rest of the piece he has chosen up' to extreme prices,- in order to complete his purchase." The would-be buyers think that they should be allowed the option of taking certainly more than

one, perhaps three, or even four sections, at the price which may he offered per acre for one section. This opinion has been expressed, not by one or two, but by nearly all who have visited the district with a view of purchasing land. Most of them admit that they want a farm, not a cabbages-garden ; and if the Government desire to see the Plains occupied by farmers, they think that they should have a fair chance afforded theni of securing not less than three or four adjoining sections. . Many of our visitors have expressed disappointment at the appearance of the land. It is so up-rooted by pigs, that fencing by ditch and bank will be almost impossible, and consequently the cost of enclosing the land will be much heavier than it would otherwise have been. The smaller the sections the heavier in proportion will be the cost of fencing. So far as we can judge, the objections raised by the would-be purchasers and selectors are worthy of consideration, and we would gladly see the conditions of sale modified in the direction we have indicated.