The Homestead Areas Act of 1872 provided for the setting apart of special areas as "homestead areas," to be exclusively settled as homestead selections, or selections taken up by virtue of land orders issued under the Immigration Act of 1869. A departure from the generally accepted principle of "homestead" settlement--that the land is granted at a nominal price in consideration of the selector personally residing on it--was made in providing for increased areas up to 320 acres at conditional purchase prices. This anomaly was corrected by the Act of 1876, which styled such larger homesteads "Conditional purchases in homestead areas." In 1876 Mr. Douglas, as Mr. Thorn's Minister for Lands, introduced an amending and consolidating Land Bill, repealing all existing alienation Acts. Extended powers were given to Land Commissioners to expedite settlement. Monthly Commissioners' Courts were provided for, but no decision of a Commissioner's Court, except in case of certificates of performance of conditions, was to be final until confirmed by the Minister. The most noteworthy provision reduced the maximum area that one person might select. The area conditionally selectable by one person was made not less than 40 acres nor more than 5,120 acres. The Act declared all leased land reverting to the Crown on the Darling Downs to be homestead areas, and empowered the Government to establish such areas elsewhere. Within these areas conditional purchase selections were restricted to 1,280 acres and homesteads to 80 acres. Personal and continuous residence by the selector was made compulsory, and, before the fee-simple could be acquired, permanent improvements to the value of 10s. per acre were required to be made. A homestead was protected against claims for debt. A Settled Districts Pastoral Leases Bill also became law this year, providing that on the expiration of the ten years' leases then held runs should be offered at auction on a five years' lease at a rental of not less than L2 per square mile, an outgoing lessee being allowed six months' grace in which to remove his stock. In 1882 the Act of 1876 was amended so as to abolish the sale of runs by auction unless when there was no application for re-lease by the existing lessee, and lessees under the Act of 1876 were given the right to an extension of their leases for a period of ten years instead of five years. The rent, however, was to be subject to appraisement.