391
application of extraneous remedies.
med advanta
The presumed
advantage
t derive
The Government might
which
by making a
present sacrifice of rental is merely speculation; for, looking
into the circumstances
of those allotments which have already
been surrendered to the Crown, I cannot
see that
any
one
of them would have
been retained under a
diminished rental
of from thirty to forty per cent at least;
nor do I conceive that a similar diminution would be attended with better success prospectively; and, if I am right in this assumption, the arguments that both the Revenue and the Colony generally would ultimately benefit if such were the case must be regarded as utterly fallacious. With respect to the Revenue, there
is no other source
of taxation by which a
deficiency
in
the amount of land-rents could
be equitably
made up; and as to encouraging
immigration there is nothing
to prevent
any new comer
from acquiring
land at
the current value of the day. If the
upset price be found too high, let it be accommodated to the existing order of things.
; and I think there are
very few
at law
who would not prefer purchasing by annual rent than by the immediate payment of Capital. The risk of the purchase becoming advantageous to the Government rather than the purchaser,
is more
likely to happen to
who, while nominally unable to surrender his land, has
never
yet,
I believe,
actually been prevented from doing so.
A sufficient protection against the
exercise of jobbery might perhaps be afforded by the exaction of one year's
the
rent in advance,
and, even in event of a surrender, the Government would be merely placed
in
its
original position with respect to the
land.