WORKING MEN'S HOMES.

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1901, Page 7 (Supplement)

WORKING MEN'S HOMES.

TO THE EDITOR. ■gir— You recently stated that 90 acres of land had been bought 1 by the Government for working men's .homes at the Waiwetu, that its survey was then about completed, and that it -was to be sold in small sections at prices to average £115 pei acre. A correspondent hag since in your columns advanced various objections as to the suitability and distance of this land, and urged that the full market value was not over £65 per acre, and he suggested that in fixing the price so high the Government was sweat- | ing its working men friends. Always j

assuming thut with the usual accuracy of the Post the selling price is to be on the basis stated, then the case is certainly one calling for enquiry, for although the whole of this proprietor's land is not bought, yet if even these 90 acres arc the most valuable, of which I have no knowledge, still, in presence of the Land Tax valuation, £65 would have been quito a full price to pay. The difference in amount at these prices is £4500, which 'is probably reducible by £500 as the" cost of surveys and roading ; but even then there still remains the sum of £4000 apparently overpaid on this land, or which the Government proposes to clear out of it as its profit. Elsewhere the members for a constituency usually exercise some supervision over like matters, and in a case of this sort, where the Government is professedly acting on philanthropic motives, surely there should be no difficulty in getting at the bare facts as to what has been paid and is intended ; but unless an early explanation is forthcoming, then the unavoidable conclusion is that there is something in this transaction very far wrong, and the like is only possible M'here a state of extreme apathy exists, or where submissive representatives can be ignbred. — I am, etc., AN ELECTOR. Wellington, 10th June, 1901.