Richmond Enquirer

DOMESTIC. PUBLIC LANDS. The present Congress have made an important change in the price and mode of selling public lands. The price is reduced from two dollars per acre to one dollar twenty five cents; instead of the former credits, the whole amount is to be paid when the land is entered : and the smallest quantity of land which can be purchased, is reduced from a quarter section or 160 acres, to a half quarter section or 80 acres. These changes, it is believed, will prove highly beneficial to the government, and not injurious to the people. The debt due for public lands was rapidly accumulating every year: for some time past, it has been necessary to pass a law of indulgence similar to our Green River Bill, and serious danger to the government was apprehended from this growing debt. Under the new system the debt will gradually diminish, and in a few years be utterly extinguished. No cause will exist for constant collision between the government and people, the former enforcing payment, and the latter evading it. What is the interest of the government, is the interest of the people. The only plausible objections we have heard to this measure are, that it may check emigration, and retard the growth of the Western country. Had not the price and the smallest quantity of land allowed to be purchased, been reduced these objections would have been solid. But under the old system the price was $2: under the new $1 25; under the old system the smallest quantity of land which could be purchased was 160 acres, under the new it is 80 ; under the old system one fourth was to be paid in hand, under the new the whole. "Under the old system a poor man emigrating to the west must necessarily buy 160 acres at $2 per acre, one fourth of which, or $80 must be paid in hand: under the new he may purchase 80 acres at $1 25 per acre, the whole of which, or $100, must be paid in hand. On the whole it is evident that the poor man can obtain a house now, with a small farm for little more than he could before. Most men in these times would value 80 acres all their own, with title complete, higher than 160 acres, one fourth paid for, without title, and subject to forfeiture and all the vicissitudes of the times. ..The industrious and economical man with so near a home, will soon find means to increase his farm without trouble to his government, or embarrassment to himself. The great object of emigration, a sure and permanent home, is placed more completely within the reach of the northern and eastern poor than it was before. Hence emigration will not be checked, but rather promoted, [Kentucky Argus. The Public Lands, The change made by the Congress, at their late session, in the mode of disposing, by sale, of the public domain, will, it is believed, operate favorably on the agricultural interests of the west. A reduction in price, prompt payments and a subdivision of the quarter section to suit the convenience of the settler, appear to be so clearly an improvement in national policy and were so unanimously adopted, that it seems surprising the old mode has continued so long." There are two classes of citizens more immediately affected by this change-the speculating part of the community, who traffic on the public lands as on articles of merchandize, and buy a township or lay off a city as they would a cargo of dry goods;-the actual settlers, who transplant their hopes and industry to a new country and virgin soil The first have already had the picking of the best tracts of land on different parts of the union, and will have an advantage in their long credits, over their brethren who must in future, pay down the cash. As this class of people, then, will monopolize less land, the farmer has the better chance of making a good selection. If he purchases of the speculator, he has, of course, to pay him his advanced profit. That two dollars as the minimum price of public land was too high, and, that the credit system has been productive of numerous evils in the west and south, can now hardly be doubted. It will be recollected that two or three years ago, Mr. Monroe, after a tour through the Ohio country, recommended an enquiry into the expediency of raising the minimum price of public lands; Congress, however, were convinced by an able committee on that subject, that the price ought rather to be reduced. They proved that in the oldest states in the union, land hardly averaged the price demanded for it in the western forests and prairies. Under the new system there will, probably, be less land bought: but it will be bought by the men who know its value and have the money in hand to pay for it. Men of superior craft and address can hardly figure without the ready, at the land sales. It can hardly be supposed that the poor man will suffer by a change: few are so destitute of means as not to be able to procure as much land as they can cultivate. The all-grasping spirit of many land purchasers has nearly ruined themselves and shaken the stability of the union. Session after session, men are sent to Congress to keep the lands of the treasury department off their constituents; a refusal to extend further credits might almost breed an insurrection in the west. Besides, the sale of public land at a price not less than $1 25 and for cash, is more advantageous to the nation. The government is poor enough, in all conscience, and cash down, in these hard times, is much more gratifying than long and forever to be renewed credit. If the Congress would now go a step further, and give certain lands to the poor of our own, and other nations that flock to our shores from Europe, on condition of actual settlement, lands which will not be valuable in a century, might produce to support the nation, a hardy and industrious population. [St. Charles Missourian.