Land Titles. 89 
clear title; thus shutting out all others who might claim 
an interest in the property. 
A Squatter's Title is recognised as a quasi title to pro- 
perty, and in most cases has arisen from undisputed pos- 
session over a long term of years. There are often cases ; 
especially connected with grants, up the rivers, where 
there is an excuse of papers getting burnt, hence loss of 
"Title Deeds/' this has been allowed, although there are no 
good grounds for such action on the part of the Executive, 
as all grants of land should be traceable through the chart 
already referred to coupled with the records in either the 
archives of the Registrar's or Crown Lands Department ; 
any doubts on this head would be removed by strict ad- 
herence to clauses 9 and and 10 of No. 9 Ordinance, 
1873. 
The most important change of all that has taken place 
in the transfer of land is that due to the contests 
that have taken place between labour on the one hand 
and productive capital on the other. A contest which 
has ended on the side of labour, and which has banished 
the Anglo-Saxon element, thereby transferring the bulk 
of the really valuable lands of the colony at a less price 
than the original cost of constructing roads and bridges 
into the hands of a class who have neither capital and 
industry to turn them into any useful purpose ; thus a class 
of pauper proprietors has sprung up on the ruins of the 
energetic early settlers and is a drag upon the really in- 
dustrious classes of the community. 
The cry is often raised to open up the crown lands of 
the colony ; the colonist who has taken the trouble to 
make himself acquainted with the length and breadth of 
the colony knows full well that there are no crown 
M 
