NEW PLYMOUTH.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VII, Issue 438, 14 January 1857, Page 5

NEW PLYMOUTH.

(From the ' Tarauaki Herald,' Dec. 20.)

The week is memorable for the confiscation of the Absentee interest in the Town Lands of New Plymouth by the Superintendent, for non-payment of the ss. tax imposed under a Local Ordinance for the maintenance of public works. We say by his Honor, because he has proceeded'to a sale of these lands in utter disregard of the deliberate recommendations of the Provincial Council to the Superintendent "to suspend the sale of Town Sections as advertised by his Honor until afier the next meeting of the General Assembly." The Superintendent's~nippant reply to this resolution has already appeared in our columns. Let it not be said that we claim for the absent land proprietors exemption from any tax on the land for which the resident is justly rateable. A portion of our revenue, properly expended, should surely suffice for the inconsiderable public works within the town. This of itself is a good objection to the particular tax, but we specially protest against it. for its daring remedy of seizure and sale of the land as a means of obtaining the tax. Under a previous Ordinance of the same session for regulating the occupation of the unenclosed town lands, the Superintendent has already let these same lands of the absentees for pasturage purposes. We are not in a position to state the gross receipts under this head, no accounts of the province for any portion of the current year having been published by his Honor. We are content to take his own estimate of £-100, as the rent from the Ist October, 1854, to 21st December, 1855. The Crown and the native lands within the town are specially exempted in the Depasturage License, and although they are unavoidably used where unenclosed, the rents and profits are payable on the private lands only. These belong to the resident and absentee, but it is chiefly the land of the latter that is unenclosed. The rent, therefore, is almost wholly derived from the absentees. The license holders of the Provincial Government are the occupiers of these unenclosed town lands—-the liability is sought to be evaded by the 22nd clause of the Ordinance, which, after directing that the " rates shall be paid by the occupier for the time being of the lands rateable,orin case there shall be no occupier, then by the owner thereof," provides *' that licenses under the Ordinance for regulating the occupation of certain unenclosed town lauds shall not be deemed occupiers for the j purposes of this Ordinance of the lands comprised in their respective licenses." According to this unexampled dodge, the Superintendent first lets the land of thy absentee, receives the rent, and then sells the land for the payment of the tax chargeable in the first instance to the occupier. But the occupiers of the land, say the specious framers of the law, are not in occupation of the land. § The number of sections advertised for sale was 554, which, at the ss. tax would give £ 138 10s. as the arrears. These lands have already realised £400 from rent, a very fair profit, over and above the tax, on other people's property; of this number 88 were sold on Monday. For alleged arrears of £22, property that sixteen years ago cost | the absentees £1,100 was xcantonlu sacri-

ficed. The agents of represented absentees, as a last alternative, advanced the rate on the remaining sections under protest. The 24th section of the Ordinance provides " that no purchasers at any sale shall be affected by any {irregularity therein, or be concerned to see that hereditaments purchased by him were properly saleable, a clause of some significance to th c purciiasers at Monday's sale. Furthermore, some of the lands sold were in the enclosures of private occupiers. The Ordinance in such case providing '" That the rate shall be paid by the occupier for the time being of the lands rateable." And a few still more serious instances occurred, Aye blush to record, of private occupiers buying the land they themselves had fenced in and cultivated. This guilty connivance in wresting the land from the owners is wilful and deliberate. The tax is payable in the first instance by these individuals as occupiers, and it was in consequence of their default and the neglect of the Government to distrain upon them for the tax in terms of the Ordinance, that the lands were sold. Let us not be beguiled into the belief that the large and important interests intended to be gqt rid of and destroyed will collectively submit to be deprived of their lands, or that we shall emerge from the false and humiliatingposition into which the Superintendent has brought •us, without the endless litigation inseparable from the complicated interests affepted. On Wednesday and Thursday the detachment of Royal Artillery under the orders of Sergeant Marjoram were exercised in round shot and shell-firing. The occasion was the first of the kind in Taranaki, and caused much interest. The practice was excellent throughout, a shot passed through the bull's eye at 800 yards. The howitzer exhibited the formidable and destructive effects of shell in warfare. The sea beach was selected for the exercise, as being the safest place, though very unfavourable for accuracy in firing, from the loqse nature of the sand. The same paper contains a letter from Mr. Gisbqrne, Under Colonial Secretary, stating that Governor Browne in compliance with the wishes of the New Plymouth Provincial Council, has signed a proclamation dissolving that Council on the 13th instant.