REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF CROWN LANDS IN OTAGO.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 79, 14 August 1869, Page 5

REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF CROWN LANDS IN OTAGO.

(Concluded.) V.— ALLEGED FA.YOUBITISM.

A complaint was made by a settler at Tuapeka — a successful gold-miner, and a highly respectable man— of the manner he had been dealt with by the Government or Land Office in the matter of an attempt to. purchase a- block of land some years back in a neighbouring district. He applied for 6,000 acres at Pomahaka, which were advertised for sale three months. Meantime, having visited the district, he found a block of much better land in the same district, so did not attend the sale of the first, which fetched at auction 355. an- acre. He then went to the office to buy the second and superior block, and found it had been, sold at £1 an acre, without any notice, to a draper, resident in the town. He was prepared to give from £2 to £3 an acre for the land. He says that Mr. Hughes, who acted as a sort of unpaid agent, allowed, at a public meeting at the election of the Superintendent, that the Province lost about £8,000 by this transaction. On investigation, it appeared that the sale had been perfectly in accordance with the law, which permitted land to be sold at the fixed price of £1 an acre to the first applicant, going to auction only in case of simultaneous applications. This seems to have been simply an instance of the working of a bad Land-law, which enabled a speculator to anticipate the purchase of a bona fide agricultural settler, although the principle of selling land to the first applicant at fixed prices was adopted and has always been defendedon the ground that it was the best precaution against this very abuse. VI. treats of the Oamaru complaints; VII. of the constitution of the Waste Lands Board. The abuse of constituting the Executive the Waste Lands Board is strongly condemned by the Commission. HOW TO SUPPLY COMMONAGE. There are only three ways apparently contemplated by 'the existing law, in which the Provincial Government either might have avoided, or may yet remove, the alleged evil of insufficient commonage } and the Government is j complained of for its acts of omission : with respect to all these modes. ! The first would have been not to have granted leases at all to runholders adjoining or near the gold diggings. This of course the law would have permitted, and if done," it would, equally of course, have precluded all the present complaints. But if this-iad been done to any large extent, the immediate consequence would undoubtedly have been, that while a severe blow would have been given to the interests of the original runholders, and the produce of wool been very considerably diminished, the

runs falling in would have been taken possession of by comparatively a few the most enterprising of the small stockholders, and thus a large number of small runholders would have been substituted for a smaller number of large runholders. The second mode — and which is still possible — of getting the commonage required would be, to take the nearest runs out of the goldfields, and declare them into Hundreds. That there would be much reason for considering this a breach of faith has been shown ;

but, in fact, it would not have the effect desired by the complainants. For, if the land were made Hundreds, it would be open for sale, and fall into the hands of "capitalists, probably the same runholders. "What the complainants want is, to have the lands for commonage and keep them within the goldfields, in the expectation that, in accordance with the practice hitherto invariably followed by the Executive of Otago, land would only be sold under the provisions relating to agricultural leases, i.e.. after bonafide occupation for a certain term of term of years, and a certain amount of im-

provements being made. Government has the power, moreover, under a very extraordinary provision in the Land Laws, to make regulations with respect to lands not under depasturing lease m the goldfields. Under this power, regulations are made for the management of common depasturage lands by Wardens, &c, similar to those adopted in Hundreds; as has been done with respect to the existing large reserve of Tuapeka. Thus the agricultural settlers would have the advantage of common pasturage given "by'fhe'Huridred system, as well as advantages that system does not give — viz., freedom from competition with capitalists and purchasers of large blocks, and the- opportunity of purchasing on a system of deferred payments. The fact indeed- is, that the Superintendent can put up such lands for sale in -accordance with the "Waste Land" Laws of 1866, and so sell in blocks as large as are sold outside the goldfields. But it is very possible that the complainants are not Mfully aware of this fact. Hence their desire above

stated. Tims itrwill be seen, that to declare any of these runs into Hundreds, under the power in that behalf given to the Governor, -would do a great injnry to the runholders concerned, and by no means satisfy those who desire to take their places. The third mode is to cancel the de-i

pasturing leases in question under the 16th dans* of " The Goldfields Act, 1866," and give the lessees compensa|j^n under the clauses following it. ■ I^The question, then, is, should. this be done ? - And, first j it is to bo considered vMW the Iwd is actually wanted

for bonajlde settlement. ; (That sheepfaxming^should giveaway before actual agricultural settlement seems, most l reasonably, always to be and to* have jbeen taken for granted. As' has been [already stated, in the present case the ! demand is made by persons who unjdoubtedly desire, as. their principal object, to become stockowners rather than agriculturists. Even those who are cultivating small blocks of land, perhaps look rather to the increase of their cattle than their cultivations for their advance in prosperity ; and it is certain .that the more land for pasture that is given to small stockowners, the more they will. both require and demand. If a couple of the existing runs, for instance, were now procured for the settlers in each of the goldfields of Tuapeka and Mount Benger, no doubt tne present agitation as far as they are concerned, and possibly all agitation, would be allayed. Small parts of the runs would be occupied for agriculture, and the rest would be commonage for cattle. But the cattle always increasing, and the land remaining the same, in a very few years the same process would have to be repeated with other runs, and so on till all the country were taken up. But before this many of the small stockowners would have become large stockowners ; and when the former, whose numbers would be continually on the increase, pressed with their cattle upon the latter, the latter, in their turn, would have to' be deprived, like the runholders, of the means of feeding their large herds — the number of cattle they would get the -right to run would be continually reduced. But a much severer fight would take place, and the small holders would have to contend against much greater odds, their adversaries being probably increased in number ten or fifty fold. This does not seem a very satisfactory conclusion, and the chances are that the same thing would take place which has happened in the old Hundreds — a demand for the sale of the land, without restriction, would be raised and acceded to, the largest capitalists would buy the land, and the small ones, who would be most probably the small stockowners, would, be left to swallow their dissatisfaction. And it is a great consideration whether cattle would not ere this have increased so that the rearing of them would cease to be remunerative, and the cattle market become overstocked, as that of sheep already has. Still, although this process (abovedescribed) would be accompanied by many evils, and possibly much hardship, it may be safely concluded that it would result in the speedier spread of population over the country than would take place under the present system. The farming might not be the best or most scientific or productive — the people wsuld not be in such thriving circumstances, probably, as a smaller neighbour located on better principles ; but it seems to the Commissioners undeniable that the country would be more rapidly filled with human beings than under the present system or enormous runs and few runholders.

Moreover, after considering all the evidence given, and fully admitting that the present cry for land is to a considerable extent a demand for the substitution of small runholders for large ones, it does still appear to your Commissioners to be a proved fact that many good iona fide agricultural settlers, some with considerable capital, have been prevented from settling in the Province because they were not allowed to buy the agricultural land they had fixed their hearts upon, and had both the means and inclination to cultivate properly. Take especially the case of the Tuapeka district. It can scarcely be doubted by any one who reads the evidence relating thereto, that many intending settlers have been forced to , leave the district, and probally the colony, in consequence of their inability to purchase land for settlement. One highly respectable witness, Mr. Bastings, Mayor of Lawrence, declared on oath his belief that if the two runs adjoining the reserve were thrown open, there would be 500 or 600 families immediately settled upon them.. He adds, "I do not overstate it. I know that the men are prepared to do so, and they will leave if facilities are not given them for settling." That this result, or anything approaching it, should be rendered unattainable, is at least a strong condemnation of the present land laws or their administration, and must be acknowledged a galling and grievous evil, and one that cries aloud for removal and remedy.

It will scarcely be denied, then, the Commissioners think, that in itself it would be a very desirable thing to find land for all these people to settle upon, even in their own way, rather than compel them io go elsewhere to seek it, could this be done without injustice to others ; — First, it is urged, that to adapt any extraordinary means for getting the .land required would be a special act of favouritism to those settlers which none others, equally deserving, throughout the colony can obtain. Hundreds of settlers elsewhere are equally desirous of getting land for pasturage, and on deferred payments, and why are those in the gold districts to be exceptionally dealt with ? It-is rather difficult to answer this question, unless it te allowed as a reason that those persons have been induced to embark in 'pursuits in their part of the country by a state of things

which Has more or less suddenly ceased or altered for the worse. They have been brought in, as it were, on the top of a high tide, which has receded and left them stranded and helpless. And it may be said that it is no good reason for abstaining from doing an , avowedly beneficial thing in these cases and in these districts, because it could not, or because it should, be done elsewhere as well. Something might perhaps be also urged on the ground of the very peculiar and marked character for enterprise, energy, perseverance, and ingenuity which the gold diggers, as a class, have shown they possess. This will be acknowledged to be language not unsuitable to the occasion by any one who has travelled through the goldfields, and seen the extraordinary operations they undertake. Water, ior instance, has to be carried along what are called "races" (i.e., water running along channels or ' aqueducts), from any higher levels where it may be accessible to the lower levels where the mines are to be worked. For leagues and leagues these races may be traced, in many instances running in perfectly direct fines across the sides and bases of the hills; now disappearing up a valley, then reappearing on the advancing prominent spurs ; carried on aqueducts and cleverly-contrived channels across the face of perpendicular precipices; left to separate and find their way in a hundred little puny falls and torrents to a lower level, where they are all skilfully gathered up again, and carried in one stream round some projecting bluff or headland; following for miles and miles the course of some rapid and winding river, always above its highest floods, or crossing from cliff to cliff, in pipes of canvass or leather, over torrents raging a hundred feet below. And if these would not be sufficient to justify the application of the laudatory terms above employed, a visit to the Blue Spur diggings at Tuapeka would certainly do so. There an auriferous mountain stands, so to speak, in a basin of schist ; and this mountain the diggers are carrying bodily away, and reducing it to running clay-streams, which deposit the gold-dust they contain in the troughs and sluices that bear them away. The races are brought to the summit of the mountain, and the water flows along in troughs and channels that cross and intertwine like threads in a skein of silk. Half of this mountain the miners have already cut and blasted away — literally making lofty and beetling cliffs and thundering waterfalls in the stupendous process. Men who can accomplish works on so great a scale, with little and often with no assistance from " capitalists," are certainly men any country may be proud of possessing, and should make a little effort to retain within its borders, even after age or diminishing strength may make teem desirous of adopting some less laborious and exciting occupation. It is quite true that the majority of those who are now clamouring for land is not composed of the really adventurous and boldly ingenious class just described, but consists rather of such as have been called the sutlers or camp followers of the gold-digging army. , Nevertheless, many of the true diggers are among the land-seekers, and many more will be, as they grow older and become more inclined for quiet ; so that on the whole, perhaps, the idea of a special and exceptional treatment of the case may be considered to be not altogether unreasonable.

The report is signed by the Hon. Mr. Domett and Mr. Strode. Mr. Eeynolds appends a memorandum, stating that, in his opinion, the Commission have exceeded their province.