CO129-033 - General Stavely - Lieut. Governor - 1850 [5-8] — Page 397

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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.