No. 27

There has been much agitation lately at this place on the
subject of the sale price of country land, which up to the
present time has been maintained at the official rate of one
pound Sterling (£1) per statute acre, payable in four equal
instalments, the first five shillings (5/s) on making the purchase,
the second at the end of two years from the date of purchase,
the third at the end of three years, and the fourth at the end
of four years, with interest at the rate of 5 per cent per annum
on the respective unpaid instalments from the date of purchase.

2. The rate of One pound (£1) sterling per statute acre is
considered too high, and has become a constant subject of
complaint with the people of the colony, who believe that the
settlement of the country would be greatly advanced by a large
reduction in the sale price of land.

3. Public Meetings have lately been held at this place for the
purpose of getting up petitions and bringing to bear upon the
Government an influence sufficiently powerful to forward that
object.

4. One of those petitions signed by a large and respectable
body of immigrants chiefly from the province of Upper Canada,
makes out a truly distressing case, to the effect that in
consequence of detentions on their way hither, and the obstacles
encountered since their arrival in this Colony, their funds are
nearly exhausted, and that their remaining means would soon be
spent, and themselves rendered incapable of settling, unless
they at once obtained leave to settle on the public land; they
moreover pray that no money should be required of them for 12
months, and, that the price should be Five shillings (5/s) (1 1/4
dollars) per statute acre, payable in four years.

5. Deeply as I sympathized with the distress of the petitioners
I did not consider it prudent or advisable to make precipitate
or sweeping changes in the land regulations of the Colony,
without being first duly authorized on that behalf by Her
Majestys Government, and in that spirit, was my reply to the
petitioners framed.

6. Anxious however to relieve their distress, and to retain a
fine active body of working men in the Colony I adopted the
simple expedient of allowing a delay in the payment of the first
instalment, by which it appears to me that the desired end is
obtained, without involving a material change in the principles
of the established land regulations of the Colony.

7. Thus for instance, instead of requiring the sum of Five
Shillings (5/s) to be paid at the time of purchase, we agreed to
receive one Shilling (1/s); the next Shilling to be paid at the end of
two months; leaving the balance of the first instalment or Three
Shillings (3/s) per acre, to be added in equal proportions to
the three subsequent instalments so that the actual price of
land and the periods at which the respective instalments fall
due, remain unaltered.

8. This plan proved satisfactory to the petitioners, who are
now negotiating the purchase of such land as they want on those
terms, which I trust will, under the circumstances I have
described and as an exceptional arrangement adopted in the
emergency, meet with your approval.