VILLAGE SETTLEMENT IN AUCKLAND,

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1466, 26 January 1887, Page 3

VILLAGE SETTLEMENT IN AUCKLAND,

(New Zealand Herald, January 17 )

Tbe village settlement scheme has •scored another marked Buccesa in the number of applicants for the Herekino block, and In the interesting fact that over two hundred people will leave for the Bite of that new settlement on Tuesday. In fact, this latest phase of the movement bears seme resemblance lo "a tuih," when *ve consider the celerity with which thin settlement has been organised, for application was imde fur the block only on the sth instant, It was pezotted on the 6th, applications were received and allo'ment made on the 14th, and on the 19th, or within the space of a fortnight, over two hundred men, women, and childron will be on the site of their future homesteads. Nothing could more strikingly show the want that there was for some such bold and liberal eoheme of settlement on the one hand, and on the other the absolute rupture of the fetters of red tape and sealing wax with which Mr Ballanoe has met this demand for homea. That there will be failures and disappointments among the throng of those wbo are hastening thus to make homes in the country is only what may be expected in the nature of things ; but that great good will reault to many, and that the welfare of the community will be promoted Is beyend queßtioc Already complaints have been uttered through the Press with reference to inconveniences, for they cannot be called hardships, which have been encountered by some of the Bottlers who have seized tho opportunities presented to them But in justice to the aet'lers ft ia right to say that the grumblers are a very small number, and that the great bulk of them are buckling to their work with a will, instead of oiling further to Jupiter to help them, are putting their own shoulders to the weel. At the same time it will of course be the dnty of those administering the system to see that every lnconvience that is removable Is removed, and the Intended visit of Mr Ballance himself will no doubt do more than any amount of despatches to make the system i work smoothly Mr Ballance rightly feila that by aeeing for himself what is required, and by hearing from the lips of the settlers themselves what can be done to best promote their welfare, and by insisting that every promise held oat Is rigidly fulfilled to the rettlera he will be doing that "?hloh will beat extend its acceptability among the population of the colony, The village settlement scheme hai so far met with much popularity. It haß in It the elements that seem neceß■ary to sucoe&B. It remains now to safeguard it, so that no honest and industrious family shall be able to point to a single inttaace in which they have been misled, so that if disappointment or failure come to any, It may be untnletakeably peen that tho fault was not in the system, but in the lack of pereeverance, o* in the general unfitnoaa of the individual settler himself.