Correspondence.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1658, 8 March 1862, Page 3

Correspondence.

To the Editor of the New-Zealandek

Sir,— l have heard that our Provincial Council lately passed a resolution on the motion of Mr. Carleton, declaring “ That in the opinion of this Council, persons intending to emigrate under the terms offered by the Auckland Land Regulations ought to be generally and explicit}'; informed that, on their arrival in this Province, they might have to compete at auction for forty acre allotments/’ I cannot understand upon what grounds the Council adopted the resolution, although I can very easily understand and appreciate the motives of the gentleman who moved it. The probable eflccts of such a resolution are twofold: first to give an impression that the Provincial Government and the Immigration agents in Britain kept back this important information from intending emigrants; and second, to lead intending emigrants in Britain and elsewhere to suppose that some trap has been laid for them —that there is some difficulty in the way of obtaining land in this Province of which the documents put into their hand does not inform them. I happen to have in my possession a copy of a panir phlct published by the general agents for the Province in London, who are also the principal emigration agents for the Province in Britain, of which two large editions have, I believe, been published, and, I doubt not, a copy of it has been put into the hands of every person enquiring about emigration to Auckland. In the appendix to this pamphlet the Waste Land Act is given in full, the 35th section of which states so distinctly under what circumstances and what manner general country land shall bo put up for sale by auction, so that no one reading the act can fail to understand it. But this is not all, for I find at page 57 of this valuable pamphlet an extract of a letter apparently from the Immigration office here, explaining minutely the manner in which land is allotted here to the holders of land orders, and the steps necessary for them to take, and in this extract the following passage occurs.: — “If no other person has applied for the same allotment that you have applied for, it is marked in the office book and upon the plan as granted to you. If another person, however, has also applied for it, unless you shall settle it between yourselves which shall have it (as we have not yet discovered any way of giving two or more persons the same piece of land), it is put up to miction between you (the applicants), the land orders representing the upset price of ten shillings per acre, and the one that bids most above that gets it.” Can Mr. Carlcton, or even the collective wisdom of the Provincial Council devise any more “explicit” mode of informing intending immigrants on this point ? One who can see as far through a MILLSTONE AS HIS NEIGHBOUR.