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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1207, 28 February 1880, Page 2

O>"E of the latest items of intelligence from that region of land-grabbers— Auckland —is that Mr. J. C. Firth, the tr.vner of Mata Mata, in fact of 1,000,000 acres of magnificent agricultural land, intends to apply to the Government for the | sum of L 7432, being the amount he professes that he has expended in improving the-navigation of the Upper Thames. If Mr. Firth makes such a claim, he will" have the honor of having committed the inost flagrant act of impudence that it has ever been our lot, or that of any other jonrnalist in this Colony, to record. He took the snags out of the Upper Thames River and otherwise rendered it tit .for navigation in order that he might provide means of conveying supplies to, and produce from, his gigantic estate. In do>ng this he as entirely consulted his own interests as he did when he purchased from a government, paternal, it is true, but so to only a few, his million acres at a peppercorn price. Has the Colony not already been liberal enough to Mr. Firth, in making him one of the richest njcn —if not the richest man—in the Colony ? What can the Colony be likely to gain by his improvement of the navigation of the Upper Thames ? He has monopolised oil the laud where thcoaviga-;

tion ends. Any settler might, with equal justice, demand from the Government payment of any amount he may have expended in constructing a road through his own property. Mr. Frith will next ask the Government to pay the expense of fencing and ditching his estate. He would not have - dared to make such a request to the late Government. It would be instructive if colonists would ask themselves how it is that such, unreasonable claims as that of Mr. Firth and others of the same ilk are being crowded upon the Colony since the present Government came into power. We have long since concluded that they are the outcome of a conviction that the present Government is the friend of the monopolists of the north.