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Oamaru Mail, Volume X, Issue 4198, 28 August 1888, Page 2

We will afford our_ Kurow read era information In which they are. Bomawhat interested, when we inform them that certain sections in the township of Kurow are advertised in the Dnuedin Star and the Ctago Daiiy Times to be offered for sale on the 31st inst. However, it is evident, from the circumstance that the Commlrsiojer for Crown lands has not advertised the sale in the local papers, that it is Intended that those settlers in this district who are most deeply interested in the sale of the land, are to be kept in the dark as to the event, ■" This is not the fir3t occasion on whioh the Commissioner haß suppressed publication in referenee to the disposal of Janda situated in this district, with results that were anything but honorable to himself or advantageous to the colony. What object he has for suppressing publication in the present instance is best known to himself. It cannot, hornvsr, be on the score of economy that he has omitted to insert the advertisement ia the only papera that circulate in the district where the land to be offered is located, for the advertisements are being repeatedly inserted in the two Dunedin papers, and the cost of doing this will be infinitely greater than that whioh would have been entailed h»d the advertisements been published where those who are the only persons at all likely to purchase would hive' seen them. If there be any virtue in advertising sales of land In papers that do not circulate in the districts in which those lands aie situated, why does not Mr Maitland evidence his thorough belief in the principle by giving the Oamaru papers advertisements of Brles of land in districts eo remote from Oamaru that the Mail and Times seldom or never reach them 1 It is, perhaps, true that we cannot, by maintaining oilenoe, or by a friendly advocacy, contribute so much as the Dunedin papera can to keep the officers of the Otago Lsnd Department in their positions acd to maintain their salaries ; but Mr Maitland has never afforded us an opportunity nf befriending him. His conduct, as an officer in the pay of the colony and pledged to protect the colony's interests, has been sucli that we have been driven into opposition to him. No on 9 need search for a cause for the tardiness of settlement, and the consequent stagnation of business, if there be many such land officers in the colony as Mr Maitla>:d, No wonder that people Bay that it is impossible to obtain land for settlement, when suoh a stumbling block as the Otago Commissioner stands in the way, What would be said if a person who was attempting to dispose of certain wares in New Zealand were to advertise those wares in the King of Dahomey's Gazette. Yet Mr Maitland haß persistently pursued a similarly ridiculous policy, and seems to argue that if the people interested in saleß will not take the papers that he patronises that is their fault, aad they and the colony must suffer accordingly.