NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, May 9, 1857.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume XII, Issue 1228, 9 May 1857, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND SPECTATOR AND Cook's Strait Guardian. Saturday, May 9, 1857.

It is generally reported that a - Bill has been introduced and is now under discussion in the Provincial Council at Nelson, by which ver important alterations are intended to be niad o in the regulations for the disposal of the waste lands of that Province. As in the next papers received from Nelson wo may probably have the report of the proceedings in Council w will not now further refer to these reports than to say that they contemplate the most impor. tant alterations yet made in the system which obtains for the disposal of waste lands in any Province since the publication of Sir George Grey’s Land Regulations. Wo cannot help thinking that the way in which this important question has been treated has been in every way most unfortu. nate, and detrimental to the interests of the Colony. The management and control of the Waste Lands of the Colony is one of the thirteen matters specially removed by the Constitution Act from the interference of Superinten. dents and Provincial Councils, and reserved for the management of the Governor and General Assembly, and Sir George Grey’s Land Regulations were drawn up for the twofold object of making cheap land, and of securing an uniform system of management of the Waste Lands of the Colony These regulations however have never had fair play in any Province. Almost as soon as they were issued an abortive attempt was made through the Supreme Court to set them aside, and though only four years have elapsed since the regulations were published they are virtually repealed in almost every Province, and we believe that now in each different Province a different system of management prevails, instead of one simple, uniform, and intelligible system of management throughout the Colony as proposed by Sir George Grey. We cannot help thinking this a great, misfortune ; and the effect to a stranger must be very bewildering; —such a difference involves so much additional trouble in seeking information, tliatit will act, we fear, in many c ases almost as a prohibition to come to the colony. The same may be said with respect to Pastoral Regulations, which

vary in like manner in many particulars in each Province, while, as if to create still greater confusion, either the Pastoral Regulations, or those for the sale of land, or both, are nearly every year the subject of fresh alterations. But there is another point, and that a very important one, to be considered with respect to these changes, we mean the way in which the credit of the colony is likely to be affected by them. It was proposed in the last session of the General Assembly to raise a considerable loan for purposes connected with the Waste Lands, of which they were to form the principal security, but we doubt if such loans will be easily affected on terms favourable to the colony, unless as far as circumstances will admit some uniform and settled plan, particularly with reference to the minimum or upset price, be adopted and adhered to,