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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 64, 22 April 1914, Page 6

There is no doubt tliat the Massey Administration is in earnest in its endeavour to people the land. Apart from any question of freehold or leasehold, thlS Reform Party is opening up the way to closer settlement, and while there are still disabilities—such. &s obtain in connection with the ballots —to be removed, the outlook for the man who really does wish to make use of a few profitable acres is promising enough. But hand in hand, with the policy of closer settlement must go the ! logical reading policy. Speaking at Whangarei " last evening, the Prime Minister stated that so, convinced was he of the necessity of roading the backblocks that lie proposed to ask his colleagues to assent to a special loan being raised for roaming purposes. The existing system of allowing settlers, who have mostly to learn the business of husbandry, to go into the untenanted backblocks, miles away from civilisation, without providing decent means of ingress and egress, is one that entails (for the new settler) perpetual hardship, which is especially emphasised in the winter mouths. Life then, becomes a mere struggle for existence, as tales told before the Wellington Land Board—which administers a tremendous area of country —have indicated. Roading the backblocl<s is an I expensive business, for obvious reasons, ' but now that money is more plentiful and the Government has worked hard and long enough to see daylight ahead, there is 110 reason for starving back country settlement any longer. It has been a reproach for many years that allocations made under the Public Works Fund have been largely the result of wire-pulling by politicians who wanted votes. The appeal of the country member genuinely concerned for his constituents at the "back of beyond" has been reiterated in the House without material success —there was much promise but little cash. However, the future is more hopeful. Settlement of the backblocks without reading access is much the same as leasing an attic and requiring the tenant, in his going and coming, to use the fire escape. It is a way out—but such a v.T.yl