To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, March 21, 1853.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 796, 23 March 1853, Page 3

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, March 21, 1853.

Sic, —The publication of the following extract from the Report of the committee of the Legislative Council of New South Wales on the upset price of land may be interesting at the present juncture; it shews that the experience of that colony proves the effect of a high price in land to be to establish a monopoly in favour of the squatting interests to the prejudice of the other interests of the community. I am, Sir, your's &c, A. B. "Your committee now proceed to examine these orders in detail, and first they would observe, that if the minimum upset price of £1 ftp acre, is to be.maintained, the lands are sub* Jjuntiajly dfvidfd by tfeese .orders only into two classes—-tbp confiscated and unconfiscated; tbe former being equivalent to tbe intermediate and unsettled, the latter to the settled districts. If land is to remain in tbe possession of its present occupant till sold at £1 per acre, it matters not whether he held a lease for eight or fourteen years—whether it is liable to be put up at auction at the end of every year—or whether he have or have not a right of pre-emption. It is his, and his for ever, not because his title is good, but because'no one will be in a condition to avail himself of its defects. The auction will never be demanded, the right of pre-emption will never be exercised* for no one will be foolish enough to buy that which is his own already without purchase. The efficacy of the minimum price of £1 an acre in confiscating is so complete, tbat tbe grant of a renewable lease of fourteen years adds little to it. It is only in the event of a reduction in thf minimum upset price that any practical diffeience will arise between tbe intermediate and unsettled districts. If that reduction be withheld, they may both be treated as one district, a district containing land alienated from the Crown as completely as by the most solemn instrument of sale."