The New-Zealander. AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, MAR. 14, 1866. THE LAND ACT, 1866.

New Zealander, Volume XXIV, Issue 2611, 14 March 1866, Page 2

The New-Zealander.

AUCKLAND, WEDNESDAY, MAR. 14, 1866. THE LAND ACT, 1866.

Ho just and fear not; Lot all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy' Country's, Thy God’s, and Truth’s.

If facilities for obtaining land, and inducements to settle on I this do not abound, it will not at least, be the fault of the I Provincial Council, and there is no present reason to doubt that the powers placed in the hands of the Executive, in order to enable them to afford those facilities, and to offer those inducements, will be permitted to remain unused. We shall presently have three systems of dealing with waste lands in operation in this Province. Ist. that familiarly known as the "forty-acre system," under the " Auckland Waste Lands Act, 1858;" 2nd. the system of dealing with the confiscated lands by order of the Governor in Council, under the provisions of the " New Zealand Settlements Act, 1803;" and 3rd. the system which has received the sanction of the Provincial Council in the "Land Act, 1866," just passed, which confides to the Superintendent and his Executive, for a short period, the power of dealing absolutely with any lands that may be acquired from the native owners by purchase with Provincial funds, which lands thus become vested in the Superintendent under " The Superintendent's Incorporation Vet, 1863." Surely, as we have said, no j one can have reasonable cause ' to complain henceforth that . difficulties stand in the way of 1 acquiring an estate of any size. i from 50 to 50,000 acres, upon terms fair at onoc to the jiurJ chaser and just towards the public. Considerable tracts of land in the northern part of the Province, in what may be properly termed the settled districts, have lately, we believe, been acquired by the Superintendent from the natives, and j it is in reference to these lands that the Act of 1866, just passed, makes the following i provision :—" It shall be lawful for the Superintendent to sell, exchange, let, and dispose of all or any of the land so vested in him as aforesaid, for such prices, in such manner, for such purposes, upon such terms, and subject to such regulations as the Superintendent, with the advice and consent of the Executive Council, shall from time to time prescribe for that purpose." We have no other indications of the purposes of the Government than were given by the members of the Executive in the course of the recent debates in Council; but we do not doubt that any large, practical, and well considered scheme for settling any one or all of the blocks of land available for the purposes of the Act, would receive support and encouragement from the Superintendent and his Executive. It is right to state that the law is a temporary one, and that it will continue in force only until the next Session of the Provincial Council, which will be held j about the close ol the current year.