SHIPPING. AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, MAT 12, 1868.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1399, 12 May 1868, Page 2

SHIPPING.

AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, MAT 12, 1868.

" Give every iran thtoe oar, but few thy vo!ce:' Take each Iran's censure, but reserve thy judgment. This above all,—To tt'lne own self be true ' ; .And it musi fo"ow, as tbe night the day, | Thou canst do; then be false to any man."

We publish in another column a letter from Mr. B. E. Turner, an®nt the land claims of Mr. Busby, and the nature of the award made to that,gentleman. That Mr.; Busby has an undoubted claim for. compensationagainst the Colonial Government eVery imEartial man must admit; so, too ; we 1; 0 , ave many others who had less po.r .friends to. toke up their claims h i

sembly, and we would fain see not on / _.Iv. Busby but these men also, awarded a due meed of compensation. The sums: qnoted by Mr. Turner as paid to the native owners by Mr. Busby for the several blocks I: 1, the ownership of which has been bailee usurped by the General Government. tire correctly stated; but we must take ex " /'jr. to the complaint that the payment li :;ae by Mr. Busby was inadequate. At the these lands were purchased by Mr. Busby the sums paid for them represented far more in proportion to the then condition of the country than has since been paid to native owners by the Government itself for the general average of country lands. £193 6s. was a higher, price to have paid for 25,000 acres at Wangarei in those days than a couple of thousand pounds would have been for a similar block ten years ago, and yet we doubt very much if the natives ever received an average of a shilling an acre for their lands from the G-overnment ten years since The truth is, land had no real value at the time that Mr. Busby and others purchased their lands. The question of its becoming of value in this or the next generation was very uncertain; and after all, we» could point to Church missionary estates, with the purchase of which the Government has never interfered, where literally the lands were purchased for not a hundredth part of the price paid by Mr. Busby.

But if we differ with those who question Mr. Busby's right, we cordially concur with all that is generally felt and said upon the manner in which the General Government, having admitted the right, has sought to satisfy it. The act of injustice to Mr. Busby has been perpetrated, not by the Province of Auckland but by the Colony, and the Colonial Government has no right whatever to make the Province of Auckland the scapegoat for its own sins. We can understand that Southern members, and one or two of our own who love the South more than they love Auckland, should have laughed in their sleeve when they saw the House saddling this Province with the burden of an obligation, peculiarly a colonial one. How was it that the Commissioner of' Waste Lands of this Province, whose peculiar duty it was to have acted as custodian of the Waste Land interests of this Province, and who even spoke upon the question, never lifted his voice in defence of the thousands of acres of Provincial lands which the Act, as the House was then passing it, was diverting to the payment of a colonial creditor. The Superintendent has, however, in withdrawing the Provincial lands from sale or selection, hastened to retrieve the false position into which the Auckland members had allowed themselves to be led, and we trust, in no hostile feeling to Mr. Busby's

nlm'm but on the contrary in his interest, that His Honor will firmly maintain his position until after the matter has been rearranged in the Assembly. Our Auckland members then must, as readily, when their opportunity offers, step forward to redeem their error. He who does not do so is a traitor to his constituents, anl to the Province. There is little doubt but that the Auckland vote can command the required alteration in the manner of satisfying Mr. Busby's claim, namely that the land to be selected under the scrip issued to him shall be selected from lands belonging to the General Government.

And the matter is a very important ont to the Province of Auckland, the_ more es pecially at the present time. If it was evei necessary and advisable that the Provincia. Government should have land to offer tc intending settlers at a reasonable price it is now that the Thames goldfields are opened and that a large population is likely to be drawn to our Province for the purpose oi working them. A large number of persons accumulating capital on the gold fields, and desirous of settling down tc some steady occupation ibr the remainder of their days, will seek to invesl their savings' in land. It is most desirable that suet men should not be handed over to the tender mercies of lane speculators, and thia they never need be, sc long as the land market iB kept in a health} condition by the active agency of the Provincial 'Government ; in : keeping lands open for selection at an upset price of tei shillings per acre. - Once drive the Provincial Government out ,of the : field, and ther the land sharks . will,, have it all their owi way. ..This is'just the effect that allowing Mr. to select rather more than 73,0Q( acres of the best of the, lands now held bj the "Province would have, and it is just th( effect that we must endeavour to'prevent Ifthe country isto be permanentlybenefidat by the discovery of a gold-field it will only b< by providing fortunate miners, as they becom< desirous'of settling down upon farms, the means of doing so. Victoria, from her illiberal land laws, in the early days of her goldfields, lost thousands of enterprising settlers who would gladly hive purchased agricultural lands, had the opportunity been afforded them.. The Government offered no suitable land in small quantities, and few cared to pay as many pounds per acre to individual landowners for small farms as tlie same should have cost them shillings from the Government. Some rented farms, cultivated and uncultivated, from large landowners, but the majority either left Victoria with their capital for colonies such as this, with more liberal land laws, or, to use a colonial phrase, " knocked their money down" as they made it. Afterwards, the Victorian Government saw its mistake and endeavoured to rectify it, but the golden moment was passed—when the land was to be had gold was less plentiful, and the miners were making, not little fortunes, but merely wages.

Now, we would fain see a different state of things here, and this can onlv be brought about by means o± Ciie&p iand, ou trainable. The digger desiring to settle on land will certainly not procure his land cheap from the speculator, nor easily, in small quantities, even if cheap, from the native owner. His only chance is to buy it from the Provincial Government, which, buying large blocks at a time, and having the means of dealing profitably and easily with the natives, can compete with large capitalists in the purchase of whole tracts of land—but which, unlike large capitalists, is willing and can afford to sell the land out again in small pieces at cost price. It is, then, a duty which must not be neglected that the public estate of the Province should from such an encroachment as that "ow attempted by the General 1, "vernrr.ent ,*v~ 3 v 4 ~?"s'- '-is Honor .irlli -r©ui..i <n :a r.nd

ohus .lo' jjs. . J-o of ILo Province ji-om beijfj; monopolised it -til such time as t l -? / .-t e r on I'e amended.