NELSON.

Otago Witness, Issue 46, 3 April 1852, Page 3

NELSON.

The " Nelson Examiner" of the 24th January contains a leading article upon the decision of the magistrates in Canterbury with respect to pasturage, in the case Dampier v. Kay. The article congratulates them upon having settled, at so early a period, a question upon which there was for a long time in Nelson no satisfactory decision. The " Examiner" says —

" There has for years been little eke here but a constant collision between the interests of the owners of stock and the interests of the cultivators of land, and unless there be here a similar recognition of the rights of the owners of land and pasturage as at Canterbury, it is quite possible that there will also soon arise a similar collision between the interests of the owners of adjoining cattle-runs, or with those and mere squatting occupiers, now that the numbers of the runs are so much increased, and the competition for them is gradually narrowing their limits, and the flocks are increasing upon them. So far as the customary law of the settlement goes, there is nothing to prevent a trespasser with sheep or cattle from answering the owner of a run, in the same manner as the stockowner daily answers the complaining cultivator—' Sir, you have no fence. You may drive out my beasts as often as you please, but I shall drive them on again, as often as you drive them out.'

" This unsatisfactory state of things, so long the rule here, but so soon abolished at Canterbury, has arisen from a cause now happily removed from Nelson, and which never existed there.

" At Canterbury, from the first, the owner of land entered upon his property with a valid and acknowledged title, and, from the first, was in a position to enforce all accruing rights ; and the late case at Canterbury is neither more nor less than the assertion of those rights, and the admission and support of them by the Magistrates.

" Here, on the contrary, we have been less fortunate. For ten years, and indeed until very lately, we have suffered under every uncertainty as to Land Titles. The constant disputes between the New Zealand Company and the Government, have throughout this long period totally unsettled all the relations of property in land. Occupation has for years been the sole title which has benefitted the owner of land, and upon him has been laid the entire burthen of protecting himself, almost in accordance with the old motto, ' Those who have, must hold ; and those may keep, who can/ Every owner of land has been compelled to share with all others the pasturage grown upon his own soil, until he could, if he could afford it, substantially fence it in ; so that he became safe in the enjoyment of it, not at all by any protection which the law afforded him, but solely by the defence of his own expensive fence.

" To put the case more strongly, we may suppose his property in land or pasturage to have

been property of some other kind, say personal property, and that the Law addressed him thus : ' You will be permitted to take care of your property yourself. If you leave it exposed, it may be taken from you. If you complain of loss, we shall not attend to the merits of your case, but we shall inspect your bolts, bars, and locks. If your money has been taken from you we shall require you to produce your strong-box and Bramah lock, and if these have been broken open, and are the best of their kind, and then only, we shall proceed to the detection and punishment of the offender.'

" The injustice of this system has been so far felt, that it has at times issued in the cutting and maiming, and killing of cattle, such being often the only means left to the injured party of reaching their offending owners ; and has been signalized by innumerable altercations, and even scuffles, between neighbours engaged aggressively or defensively in settling, for themselves, the question of stock versus crops.

" Under such circumstances there might almost as well have been no law at all, for bolts, bars, and locks, are rarely broken through, if good of their kind; and any man well secured by these and by good fences, may sleep in safety from thieves and cattle, while those who from poverty, or any other cause, were wanting in these respect 3, could not otherwise but suffer severely.

" Happily this state of things can now be remedied, for there is now no longer the same unsettled state of the land question. All just claims have been admitted, and in a great number of cases Crown Grants and Pasturage Licenses have been issued, and all owners of land and pasturage are in precisely the same advantageous position as those at Canterbury. There is now no more occasion for a man's right to depend upon the strength of his fence, than there is in the Victoria Plains, and if there be reasonableness and justice in this altered relation of things, we need not fear the result ; the good tree will assuredly bring forth its good fruit, if we will only patiently await the issue."