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afford no experience upon which to found a judgment. I believe the granting of agricultural leases within gold-fields will be highly beneficial, and that they will be applied for so soon as the impression becomes general that the gold-fields will be permanent on any given spot, and consequently when the population becomes more settled. I am further of opinion that it would be desirable to grant leases of larger extent than ten acres, and to afford a greater security of tenure than can be given under the existing law. There is a large extent of land within the boundaries of proclaimed gold-fields, which in all probability will never be worked for gold, and I see no reason why such lands, after a sufficient examination, if found to be non-auriferous, should not be let upon lease, with a purchasing clause at a fixed price, sufficiently high to ensure the land being only applied for by those bona fide intending to use it.

With regard to the general working of the Land Regulations of the Province, both as regards the principles upon which they are based, and the practice in carrying them into operation, on which you request my opinion, I would observe that the principle upon which the Otago Land Regulations are based—viz., that the land should pass into the hands only of those who intend to use it, is in my opinion both wise and just; but the improvement clauses, by which that object is sought to be carried out, have latterly become ineffective, by reason of doubts entertained on the possibility of enforcing them. Upon the best legal means of obviating this difficulty, the Provincial Solicitor is the proper officer to express an opinion; but should there be no effective means of enforcing the conditions, I am of opinion that it will be impossible to prevent the country from passing away from the Government into the hands of large buyers, unless the price be raised.

The chief difficulty in carrying out the existing Land Regulations, in the spirit in which they were passed, arises from the fact of certain portions of the most available land on the sea coast having been retained as runs, and withheld from sale for so long a period as to have acquired a high position value far exceeding the ordinary average value of Crown Lands. I refer especially to one Section of Rural Land, adjoining the Town of Oamaru, which sold at the Government Sale for £14 per acre, and the whole of Block 1, Oamaru, which comprised 3776 acres, sold on an average for £3 6s. 10d. The whole of the land on the seaboard, north of Dunedin, and portions of the Interior Valleys, such as the Waihemo Valley, have more or less acquired a position value, and it therefore becomes impossible to have a fixed price applicable to the whole lands of the Province which can work satisfactorily; and I do not see how it is possible to prevent those lands, which are much above the average value of the Crown Lands of the Province, from falling into the hands of large capitalists, with whom the small capitalists cannot compete.

That portion of the Land Regulations which provides for an auction between the applicants for the same land, whose applications have been made on the same day, is generally little understood by the public, and is attended by much inconvenience; this, however, arises from that which was understood to be an exception, having become the rule in that stated before, that much of the land having acquired a higher value than the Government fixed price of £1 there will always be a large number of applicants for such lands, many of whom are mere speculators. I can see no remedy for this state of affairs but to raise the price of land to such a sum as will represent the average value of the Crown Lands generally, and by surveying and throwing open land greatly in excess of the demand. The course would replace the Land Regulations on their original footing, and the applicant for land would then find it to be an exceptional case where he was exposed to competition. The present inconvenience of the closed auction, as it is called, would have to be submitted to in dealing with all those lands which have acquired a market value much in excess of the rate which might be fixed as the price of the Crown Lands.

If the object of the Government be to ascertain my opinions on the subject of the Land Regulations, with a view specially to the revenue, I repeat the answer to the former question—That the system of open auction is the only one whereby the full value of the land can be obtained, and that any rules or regulations which tend to discourage speculation in land, equally tend to the reduction of the amount receivable by the Government.

There are several minor difficulties in carrying out the Land Regulations, the remedies for which were suggested by me to the Government several years since, and I prepared a revised set of regulations, which were, however, rejected by the Government. The revised regulations took a very considerable time to prepare, and I have not the notes by me from which they were prepared. As the amendments had reference to those points on which the regulations were evaded, and as the Local Government has ceased to have the power