VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 191, 15 August 1888, Page 9

VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

TESTIMONY TO THEIR SUCCESS,

Mb Tims. C. Tobveb, of Harbour House,' Karangahap&Boad, writes :—" As tho subjSfcfc Of tillage settlements still engages publife alt&fttibn, pei-haps a few extracts from a letter recei^d from a friehd of mine, who after trying for a long time was unsuccessful in Obtaining employment in Auckland, mighfc prove interesting, as showing that in the right hands the village settlement scheme ia likely to prove. » blessing to,the country at large, as well as to fcl?.e individual. They were nqt written with any idea of publication. The writer, who is located at Taheke* Hokianga, says i ;. _ " ' There is a lot of talk about village settlement in Auckland. People are beginning to see that the scheme is a good omNone of the people that <fame up here have died from starvation There isno fear of that if a man will work. lean tell you I am inucli hiippier up here than I was in Auckland. I have a couple of cows and calves, two horses. I have my house finished. I may say I have added two more raofes to the first building ypoW_ I halve as nice a little house as any in the i Settlement; the hbnse how is 40 feet square. I. We have setvice every Sunday. Last | Sunday I was oppointed choirmaster; we have a fine harmonium. A few weeks #gp I put a drain through a raiipo swamp. I went down kbout seven feet in the solid for abo. b on© dßaikand ahalf--raug h work for I a Brummagem engraver. I did not get I much of a orop last year, the ground being mHii blit 1 hope for better thtag/i _h^ year, We have had eoriie littte road work thig winter, hht nbii ihuch, I have ribt troubled the Government ibr much { it allhas to be patdbaok,' , L _. " Th&t last tentenee shows that the flrgu* Weai} that «people will take all they can

from the Government and then throw up their sections' does not apply to all. He speaks of some neighbours whose sons, when fir^t going up there, were very weakly looking, as now being much stronger and able to do more work. I may add that since settling at Taheke, Hokianga, he came to the conclusion that it was not good for man to live alone, so he, as Handy Andy remarked, 'tied a knot with his tongue which he cannot undo with his teeth' by taking unto himself a wife, which, taking into "consideration the porridge meal, accounts for the two extra rooms to thehouse.'