Richmond Enquirer

PUBLIC LANDS.

It is recommended by a writer in the Literary Cadet, printed at Cincinnati, Ohio, that it shall be allowed by law to all those who owe money for purchases of Public Lands, to receive a title to such portion of the land purchased as the amount of the first instalment on the respective purchases (already paid) would have bought at the price at which it was bid off or entered. As, in consequence of the law of the last session requiring cash payments for lands, the nominal value of all land bought from the United States has fallen, it is supposed that the proposed alteration would at once annihilate the debt due for sales of lands: as every purchaser would be glad to get rid as well as he could of a bad bargain; and this to the great advantage of the Western country, and without detriment to the interests of the United States. Of the expediency of this course, a correspondent requests us to express an opinion. This we are not prepared to do.—It is a question of great moment, and requires the aid of all the lights of experience and practical knowledge of the subject, which we want. We shall publish the article recommending it, however, and all others which we may be asked to publish on the subject. That some further legislation is necessary on this head, we have not the least doubt, to obviate the necessity of Congress having to pass laws of indulgence, ad infinitum, to the present public debtors, whose claim to that indulgence is strengthened rather than weakened by the law of the last session.