The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 18, 10 May 1851, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times.

SATURDAY, May 10, 1851

THE TERMS UPON WHICH PASTURAGE IS TO BE LET IN THE CANTERBURY DISTRICT.

The terms upon which pasturage runs may be obtained in the Canterbury district, ought to occupy the most serious attention of the settlers. Those who have read the documents we have published in former numbers of our journal, have before them three different systems upon which pasturage may be, or is proposed to be, obtained in this Island of the New Zealand group..--*..

1. There are the pasturage regulations of the Canterbury Association now in operation in this district.

2. There are the Government regulations now in force in the Province of New Ulster, which are proposed by the Governor to be adopted in the whole of New Munster, except in the Canterbur}' district; and an ordinance for which purpose is to be passed by the General Legislative Council about to assemble.

3. There are the regulations which the Council of Colonists have recommended the Association to adopt, instead of those now in force.

We will repeat in a few words the nature of these three systems.

1. According to the Canterbury Association's rules, the members of the first body of colonists are entitled to a pasturage run over five times as much land as they have purchased, at the rate of 16s. Bd. per hundred acres, with a pre-emptive right over the whole. All other persons, whether purchasers of land or not, may have as much pasturage as they require, on the payment of 20s. for a hundred acres by the year; but they can obtain neither lease nor pre-emptive right.

2. Accoi'ding to the U-overnment regulations which will be in force in a short time over the country immediately adjacent to the Canterbury block, pasturage may be obtained only by the purchase of a license from the Government. These licenses are of two kinds ; those given to proprietors of land to depasture cattle within the limits of a district proclaimed to be a hundred ; and those given to all persons to run cattle without the limits of the hundred. The price of a license, is five pounds ; besides which, cattle depasturing with-, out the hundreds, are assessed at the rate of 6d. for large cattle, and Id. for small cattle, per annum ; and those within the hundreds, at the rate of ss. and Is. respectively : but in no case do the Government give any right of occupancy for longer than one year, of any pre-emptive right, or any compensation for inprovements. 3. From our report of the last meeting of the land purchasers, it appears that the council have recommended the Association to alter their regulations as follows. They wish that two kinds of licenses should be issued, which they denominate " general" and "special" licenses"; that the block should be divided into two districts; called the " Agricultural," compxising all the country within ten miles of the coast, the other, the " Pasturage," extending over the rest of the block ; —that the first body of land purchasers alone shall be able to obtain special licences, extending over the unsold portions of the Agricultural district:—and that general licences may be issued to all persons, enabling them to run, cattle over the Pasturage district; —that all persons may obtain defined runs upon a lease of fourteen years, paying 10s for each hundred acres, and enjoying a pre-emptive right over the whole.

We do not entirely agree with any of the systems here_.proposed. The regulations of the Canterbury Association are certainly

the worst; because they amount, in the present state of things, almost to a prohibition to any stock holders to bring their flocks and herds into our district. The rate charged per hundred acres is, in fact, a prohibition to feed stock at all. We are assured that there are several persons at this moment who would have run their sheep and cattle within the Canterbury block, and who are going to form stations beyond the northern boundary, because the terms they can obtain from the Government are more favourable than those of the Association.

Now here we have a case in point, of what is meant by that word upon which we are continually harping,—Self-Government. It cannot obviously matter a straw to any one in England under what regulations our pasturage runs are leased in this country. To us, to the settlers, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of wealth or poverty. This then is wholly and solely a local question, and ought to be settled by local autho - rity out here, not bjr the Association in London. But it happened —by some oversight, as we suppose,—that the terms upon which pasturage may be let in the Canterbury district, that is, twenty shillings for an hundred acres, was slipped into the Canterbury Act of Pai-liament. This has proved a most deplorable mistake. Not only must we send to England to get it remedied, but we must actually wait until a new Act of Parliament can be obtained ; and until then we must suffer all the inconvenience, indeed more, the positive loss, which must arise from a charge having been made for pasturage, which stock keepers will not pay.

Now we do not make these remarks in any spirit of blame towards the Association. The active members of the Association are the last men in England to act in opposition to the spirit of self-government. We look upon this act as simply a mistake, which the Committee will be the very first to acknowledge and to rectify. have alluded to it as an instance of how deeply important it is to the colonies that their own affairs should be managed here in the colonies, and not there in England. The Association should have left the pasturage regulations to their agent in New Zealand, when all this difficulty would have been got over in a few days.

But there is another point in which the regulations of the Association ought, we think, to be revised. They do not give squatters any pre-emptive right: nor do the} r offer to give leases. Now without the security of a lease, and without that security for compensation for improvement which the pre-emptive right affords, no man will go to the expense necessary for establishing an extensive run. We.therefore hope that the Association will lose no time in adopting the recommendation of the Colonists' Council in these respects. That they will lower the annual charge to 10s. for a hundred acres, and will allow runs to be occupied on lease, with a pre-emptive right of purchase over the whole. We also agree with the colonists in thinking that some portion of the district should be reserved to the land-purchasers to enable them to have limited runs in the neighbourhood of their properties ; the same principle is recognised in the government regulations; but we doubt whether it would be wise as the colonists recommend, to reserve a tract of country of so many miles width along the coast, at so early a period of settlement, before we know where the population of the country will ultimately congregate. Would it not be better to reserve tracts of country within a certain distance of the actual settlements of the land-purchasers, to come under the operation of the special licenses ? We differ however wholly from the recommendation of the Council that the special licences should be reserved to the first body

of colonists. We think all land-purchasers ought to be entitled to the same privileges in this respect. The first body were certainly entitled to some advantages to repay them for the risk and hardships of founding an entirely new settlement; but those advantages ought not to be of a kind which will tend to create a class in the colony, with class privileges, which the rest of the purchasers do not possess. We think that if the colonists would reconsider this point they would agree with us, that the principle adopted by the government, of reserving the pasturage within each Hundred, to all the proprietors of land within that Hundred, is a fairer and a more practical and rational regulation than that sanctioned at their last meeting, of setting aside a large tract of country which it is supposed will be first peopled, and reserving the privilege of pasturage in it to one very small portion of the community. We think in a very few years it would be found utterly impossible to maintain this distinction of class privileges.

This is, hoAvever, the only point in which we think the regulations of the Government preferable to those of the Association, and of the colonists. It seems to us that the fixed rate of rent for pasturage at so much per hundred acres, may be defended upon reasoning analogous to that which has demonstrated the advantage of the fixed price of land for sale. The government method of assessing the cattle at so much per head, opens the door to all sorts of.jobbmg, and to every kind of dispute. 'The machinery is complicated : the computations and assessments which must be'made afresh every year are exceedingly troublesome. The mode on the other hand of charging a fixed rent, by acreage, is simple and distinct, and seems to admit of no doubt or dispute.

We think we have fairly stated the present position of the pasturage question, and we think the failure or success of the colony depends upon its speedy and satisfactory adjustment. The squatter ought certainly to contribute something towards the introduction of civilization into the country, but as he can necessarily, from the manner of his occupation, and the distance to which it leads him from the centre of population, take comparatively but little advantage of the institutions introduced among us, his contribution should be proportionally small. The Council of Colonists seem to think that a very considerable revenue might be obtained, by leasing the pasturage of the district at such a moderate rate as squatters would be ready to pay, but we had ten times rather see, the whole country overrun by unlicensed squatters, contributing nothing to the settlement of the country, further than that Avhich they necessarily contribute by creating a large export trade from our ports, raising the value of our land, increasing the land sales, and stimulating every species of industry in the more settled parts of the country, all of which necessarily follow from the neighbourhood of a fully occupied pasturage district; than see that district left a useless solitude, by a mere blunder in drawing up the terms of occupation.