THE HUNDREDS COMMISSION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1001, 4 February 1871, Page 1

THE HUNDREDS COMMISSION.

The Report of the Hundreds Commissioners is a document which our politicians, and especially our professionallandagitators, will do well to study. Founded as it is on an actual inspection of the proposed new Hundreds to which it refers — made by men who can have no interest in the question in hand, except such as every member of the community has in a matter on which the progress of the province depends — the conclusions which it records are entitled to the highest consideration. Moreover, the judgments of the Commissioners have been aided by the evidence given in each case by persons resident in the neighbourhoods in which the proposed Hundreds lie. In regard to this evidence, they themselves record the fact that its * general uniformity in respect to each Hundred' rendered their own task 'comparatively easy.' We hope it will not be long before this evidence finds its way before the public. This subject is, of all local ones, the most interesting and important to all of us. We are told so many different tales about the demand for land, and the particular character of the requirements of those who make that demand, that it will be very useful to know what the men who want land themselves say on the subject; and also-— scarcely less important— what their neighbours say of these men and their requirements. We hope, therefore, that the evidence taken by the Commissioners will be printed in full, and in such a form as to be readily available to the public.

The first thing that must strike the mind of the reader of this Report, is a fact to which we have on many occasions called attention — namely, that it is not the runholder only whose interests, or supposed interests, stand in the way of the sale of our waste lands. Of Campbell's Hundred, we read of * the mining community being opposed to the alienation of the land.' Of Lower Hawea, ' the wishes of the settlers in the vicinity are so strongly opposed to the land being thrown open under the Hundreds Act,' that the Commissioners cannot recommend that such a course be taken. Of the HydeHundred, ' the evidence clearly shows thai the alienation of land within the limits of the proposed Hundred must inflict very serious injury on the mining interests in this particular locality.' For similar reasons the Commissioners think that the land in the proposed Tiger Hill Hundred ' should not be alienated,' adding that ' their opinion is strengthened by the feelings and expressed wishes of the whole population, in and about the district.' We feel very little doubt that opinion amongst all sections of the community will support the Commissioners in. their conclusion that to force the sale of waste lands in such a manner as to interfere with the mining industry of the province, would be the height of impolicy. The ancient illustration of ' killing the goose that laid the golden eggs,' may be made to do service in this case with more than usual fitness, Tt would be very well if those who make it their business to vilify the pastoral interest in the hope of makingpolitical capital thereby, would attempt to explain what is the special difference between the two interests which should warrant the difference of sentiment in regard to them. It is, indeed, by no means the professional politician. only who fails to see the analogy between the two cases. The general public is very apt to exclaim at once if «. runholder ventures to argue against his run being taken from him, that he is merely following the obstructive instincts of his class. It never stops to consider whether circumstances similar to those which haye influenced the Hundreds Commissioners in the cases just referred to may not e*ist, in coaaequeacfl of which it ptajl be »gataet

public policy to injure the 'interest' already engaged in utilizing that portion of the public estate which may be in question. We should hear less * tall talk ' about the hated squatters, if the facts were remembered that to throw open land for sale is not the same thing as to sell it, and that even to sell it is cot always to 'promote settlement,' and increase the productive, power of the country. This is readily enough recognised in such cases as those on which the Commissioners have just reported ; left out of sight altogether when — as has happened before to-day — the case has been closely similar, the words ' pastoral interest' only replacing mining interest' in the account of it.

There is another reflection which will probably arise in the minds of many readers of this report — why was it left to these three gentlemen to find all this out? The Executive Government, of the province ought to have been well informed on all the matters as to which the Commissioners have been taking evidence. On such subjects the members of the Government ought to be, and might be, the best informed men in the province. There are officers in the Government service who could have made as intelligent an examination of the questions which the Commissioners have been investigating as these gentlemen themselves. Before the Government asked that this and that Hundred should be proclaimed, it ought to have been very well aware what the nature of the report upon these proposed Hundreds would be likely to be. What shall we believe ? Did the Government neglect this simple and obvious duty — really one of the most important that it has been lately charged with 1 Or was the result, as we now see it, anticipated from the beginning 1 Was it intended that Hundreds should be refused at the instance of the Commissioners in order that the people of Otago, during this stirring election time, might more thoroughly appreciate the iniquities of the Otago Hundreds Regulation Act ?