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King Country Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 245, 26 March 1910, Page 3

Sir Joseph Ward presided over a meeting of the State Guaranteed Advances Board last week, and a large number of loans for local public bodies for various purposes were considered, and loans were provisionally approved to the extent of £612,000. The preference was given to local bodies applying for moneys for roads, bridges, sewerage, drainage and water purposes, and those local bodies with backblock requirements were first considered, and where the securities were right the applications were in each case granted at 3i per cent, interest with sinking fund. The various public bodies will be advised of the result of their applications. Not many New Zeaianders, perhaps, have ever heard that seventy years ago the whole of the South Island was sold to an Australian for less than £4OO. The story is told in a Sydney paper in an article on Wiliiam Charles Wentworth, one of the New South Wales pioneers, who was responsible for carrying the Constitution Bill through the British Parliament. That was in 1855, and it was fifteen years earlier that for the paltry sum mentioned, and some prospective annuities to certain New Zealand chiefs, Mr Wentworth secured the'whole of the Middle Island of- New Zealand and 200,000 acres in the North Island. Sir George. Gipps disallowed the bargain, and the claimant was heard at the Bar of the Legislative Council. A British Government had made New Zealand a dependency of New South Wales, consequently the alleged purchase was too late to bo valid. An Act was passed ousting the claimants and forbidding person 3 to form colonies without the consent of the Crown. Had Mr Wentworth's claim remained good (says the "Dominion") he would have held the world's record as n landlord, having in his possession more of the earth's surface than any other private individual.