Wellington Independent TUESDAY, 16th SEPTEMBER.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3902, 16 September 1873, Page 2

Wellington Independent TUESDAY, 16th SEPTEMBER.

It is some weeks ago that the Premier ; obtained leave to bring in a Bill to provide for giving free grants of land to immigrants, but the Bill itself was only i circulated yesterday. At the time of the 1 ■ first reading we stated generally that the Bill was intended to substitute for the ," system of free passages, a plan of giving i •to persons who pay their own passages i free grants of land. We find from a perusal of the Bill that we were not • quite correct in our explanation. The < Bill does not interfere in any way wilh the immigration regulations now in force, ' but it extends considerable privileges to those immigrants who pay their own passeges to the Colony. A summary of the Bill will no doubt be interesting to our readers ; — The preamble sets forth the desirability of permitting immigrants from the United Kingdom 1 and elsewhere (the Australian colonies excepted), " to acquire land free of cost in proportion to their expenditure on immigration," and the following is a condensation of the principal provisions of the Bill : — Every person between the ages of eighteen aud sixty years who pays his own passage to the Colony, and who desires to settle upon and cultivate the soil, is to be entitled, under certain conditions, to a grant of land to the value of twenty pounds, If the immigrant so paying his own passage be the head of a family he is to be allowed land proportionate to the num. . ber of his family whose passage he has paid, as follows : — For the head of the family, male or female, and for such „ hia or her family of the age T of fourteen .years and upwards, land to «. the value of ££0 for each ; and for other Vmembers of the family under four--3 years, land to the value of £10.

The Bill is very liberal in its interpretation of the term "family," as it includes within that definition " wife, child, grandchild, nephew, and niece of the head of the family." So much for those to whom the Bill is to apply ; we now come to the conditions under which they are to be enabled to enjoy its advantages : — As early as possible after the arrival of any immigrant who has paid his passage and that of his family, he or any other immigrant who has paid hiß passage must make a claim under this Act to the nearest immigration officer, such claim to set fonh the full particulars necessary to entitle him to the benefits of the Act. On the immigration officer being satisfied of the claim of the immigrant, the name of the claimant will be entered in a register, together with the amount in valueof the land to which such claimant will be entitled to select, in respect of hJ3 own passage or his own passage and that of his family. At any time within five years after the arrival of any immigrant so registered, he may for himself and for other members of his family for whose passages he may have paid, apply to the Minister for Immigration to purchase for him land to the amount in value to which he is entitled. At the time of making the application the claimant must notify or describe the land he desires to be purchased (which land, it is almost needless to say, must be lands the property of the Crown). The next piocess is the purchase of the land by the Minister (we may here say that the Bill does not profess to give any preemptive right of purchase to the Minister), and the Bill provides that if the land notified by the claimant be put up to auction and should fetch " a higher price than the value to which the registered immigrant is entitled, or if for any other reason the Minister is unable to purchase the land notified, the registered immigrant may give a new notification of other land, and so on from time to time." Any land purchased by the Minister on behalf of any registered immigrant is to vest in the Minister until the conditions of occupation and cultivation prescribed by the Act shall have been complied with. It is as well to observe here that the land to be selected " must in every case, whether in the case of a single immigrant or the head of a family in respect of such family, be in one block." Before any Crown grant for land purchased on behalf of apy registered immigrant shall be issued, the person or persons for whom the land has been purchased mu9t have occupied the land continuously for two years, and have cultivated at least one-fifth of such land. Should the immigrant neglect or refuse to occupy and cultivate under the provisions of the Act for two years after its purchase by the Minister, the right of occupation will cease and the land will be forfeited. A provision, however, is made to meet the case of persons who, whilst in the performance of their engagements with the Government, may die within the specified probatory period of two years, under wh eh " any devise of such land made by him to any of the members of the family who emigrated with him shall be valid and take effect as if such immigrant had received a Crown grant thereof before his death." A very important portion of the Bill is that which prevents the immigrant from dealing in any way with his interest or supposed interest, in. the land to which he would be entitled did he fulfil the conditions of the Bill. This clause runs as follows: — "The interest of a registered immigrant in land under this Act, who has not received a Crown grant thereof, shall not be assignable at law or in equity, nor be capable of being devised, except under the provisions of this Act, and shall not be oapabie of being charged, encumbered, extended, or taken in execution in any manner whatever." The Bill contains provision for the allowance of lacd to persons who may introduce immigrants at their own cost, the proportion and conditions to be fixed by the Governor, in accordance with the other provisions of the Act. The whole Bill, of course, depends upon the consent of Parliament to provide the means for enabling the Government to purchase the lands required for the purposes of the immigrants proposed to be invited by the Act. The above gives a tolerably clear explanation of the " Immigrants' Land Bill" — a measure which, we think, is likely to be of great use in introducing a most desirable class of immigrants to this colony — persons and families to whom a free passage is no inducement, but to whom grants of land are a strong temptation ; pi-ople who desire to settle upon and cultivate their land. The Government have very properly introduced a provision in the Bill which will effectually prevent the abuses that have arisen under former plans of conditional land occupation in New Zealand. No right or license of any kind will be given to any immigrants under the Act which he can possibly dispose of. This reetriction will of course prevent the evils which crept into the old forty-acre system of Auckland, and the Military Settlements Act. The Bill is one that should receive the hearty support of Parliament.