THE Thames Advertiser THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1878.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XI, Issue 2905, 18 April 1878, Page 2

THE Thames Advertiser THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1878.

Our Poverty Bay contemporary—the " Standard "—remonstrates. with '■ the Auckland Waste Lands Board on the exorbitant nature of the upset price placed upon the Patutahi block, and on the folly of asking such prohibitive rates for waste lands of the Crown, which have really cost the country bo little. The question is one of importance to this district, as well as to Gisborne, in view of the projected opening up of lands for sale, .. Thei'fl are two sides to the question, it is true, but we are inclined to concur in the view taken, by our contemporary, that the Government should not seek to make a large profit out of these sales, because by so doing they only help to defeat their own object—the growth of settlement, and the occupation of our waste lands by an .industrious class of settlers. ' Perhaps our contemporary goes to the other extreme when he urges that a "sufficient price" is such as will repay the cost of survey and purchase, and leave a margin of profit to the purchasers, The charges on the land fund of the colony are'such as cannot be lightly - met, and' they are not likely to decrease for some time to come. Besides, on the payment system a percentage of the purchase money : is returned for expenditure on roads through the blocks; and in the matter of townships the country has a perfect right to claim what would otherwise.only go.into the pockets of investors in township lands—those land speculators who seek to monopolise these choice spots, and to force a market for their sale when the sturdy settler has increased their value iiUhe market. These are points ent|gly overlooked in our. contemporary's strictures' on the action of the Auckland Waste Lands Board. We fail to understand the reference to the late Sir Donald McLean and the statement that if he had lived the block would never have been sold under the ordinary land laws. Is it an insinuation that it would have been monopolised by private land sharks 1 It is certainly open to such construction, although we do not think our contemporary will be satisfied with such a conclusion. The great drawbacktotheprogressofPoverty Bay has been the locking up of its lands by private speculators.' The Waste tand3 Board deserve some credit, rather than censure, for. the energy they have shown in throwing open the Patutahi block, although they may have placed a high, value upon it. If the glowing accounts we have'received of its excellence are correct we do not consider the sale is too heavily handicapped by the Board, and shall expect to find it realise a nice round sum' to enrich the land fund of the Auckland district, Theblock contains 50,000 acres, 30,000 of which was originally ceded to the Government, and upon which a sum of £10,000 was paid for 20,000 acres returned to the East Coast and Hawke's Bay tribes,

and 20,000 acres we subsequent ! added to tlio block for nothing, through the agency of a Government representative in the district. The matter, therefore, stands thusso,ooo acres were acquired and surveyed at a cost to the Government of about £14,000, and from the sale of land announced the Board expect to realise something like £40,000 for little more than onethird the area so acquired. This is the position, according to our contemporary, and the arguments used against this official exorbitancy are such as have been ventilated through these columns on many occasions—that' the Government have no right to squeeze out of the pockets of the people that which should go towards maintainingthepeople on the land and assisting them to work it after purchase. Our contemporary says •—"'We deny that it is true political economy to exact the uttermost farthing of value as the price at which the territory of the Crown—which, after all, is the people's—shall be purchased. It is the essential duty and prime function of a Government to foster, not to impose on, or impair- the vital energies! of the peopl over whom they are chosen to rule. Hence it follows that the lands of the colony—the people's heritage— the very foundation of all which presently constitutes its -prosperity, and ultimately will prove its greatnessshould be allowed to go at that 'sufficient price' (to quote Mr Edward Gibbon Wakefield) which, while it will repay the Government for the outlay, will leave a margin of profit to the purchaser If one thing more than any other could furnish a powerful argument against the continuance of irresponsible nominee Land Boards, it is to be found in the instance to which we now draw attention—that of an arbitrary, im» perative, fixture of price, not of value, of lands which have to be administered under the existing laws. Those powers, which are supreme and autocratic, contain the germ of all that is unsound in theory and pernicious in practice. They wield a weapon which, as in the case of the Patutahi lands, may be the means of menacing a whole community at home, and numbers abroad] while it will act as a deterrent to bond fide settlement, by placing the various sections at such a figure as mil put, it beyond the means of men of small capital to embark in the enterprise; or, if they do, will involve them in ruin, or cripple their energies for years to come, through the necessities of mortgaging to third parties so as to provide that which it should be the duty of the Government to allow them to retain as much of as possible." One of the best tests of the value of these lands will be the competition at the sale, although we do not approve of bona fide settlers being handicapped to such an extent as our contemporary indicates. It is clear that the Board entertain a very high opinion of the value of the block, a fact which must 'to some extent be gratifying to the people of the district, because it is a guarantee of future prosperity. "We do not agree with our contemporary that private capitalists should have the benefit of the competition, for these lands because they happen to be rich and valuable, and acquired at so small an outlay. It does not follow that because 20,000 were obtained for nothing that the Board should give the land away, although we agree with the arguments in the main that the Government have no right to enforce any prohibitive or."grinding tariff," unless under "special circumstances" and " sanctioned by Parliament." The " special circumstances" in this instance are the easy .acquisition of a block of rich land, and the increased value put upon all the waste lands of the Crown by the action of the Government last session,