LAND SETTLEMENT.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12461, 26 March 1906, Page 2

LAND SETTLEMENT.

» ■ INTERVIEW WITH THE MINISTER OF LANDS. The Minister of Lands was interviewed at Cheviot on Friday by a representative of "The Press" on the subject of settlement in North Canterbury and Marlborough. Mr Duncan stated that there was plenty of country between Waikari and Kaikoura suitable- for land wttlemen't, and there was no doubt that la.ter on some of that land would be acquired. 'You will not get another Cheviot," he added," for the country now,, available is higher up than the Cheviot land, and the settlers would have two months more winter than they have here." Questioned as to whether Cheyi<*t hfld been cut up in the best possible m*nner oonsistont with the interests of land settlement end those of the tenants. Mr Duncan ' said that the division of the estate was no doubt a good one when the settlement was first started, and when the means of petting rid of the produce were difficult and costly. Th«n it was neoeSsary that the areas held by the individual tenants should be fairly large. Those conditions, however, would be altered with the approach of the railway, and there would then be room for smaller holdings than existed now. Some day the flat land at present used for pastoral purpose* would be further subdivided end set apart for dairying, cropping, etc., but that would not be for a time yet. He had found a tendency on the part of Crown tenants to ask for larger holdings, and a lot of them were crying out for larger places now. Referring to Glenmark, he raid that that estate should have been acquired by the Government. He had met some of the Flaxbourne eettlers lately, and they all ecemed to be well satisfied. He had intruded to go through Flaxbonrne on his present tour, but business Had taken him another way. At the Starborough settlement-, on the other side of ' Flaxbourne, the settlers were also doing very well. Large crops of barley had been grown on the settlement this year, J which the tenants were selling at 5s a bushel and makiruj "pots or money." The settlers at Hundalee. through which ho passed on his way down from KaiIcnura. were also'gettinc on very well.