BACKBLOCKS SETTLERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 27, 1 February 1912, Page 2

BACKBLOCKS SETTLERS.

CRITICISM OP MR. WILSON'S STATEMENTS. LAND IN THE KING COUNTRY. [BI TELEGRAPH — SPECIAL TO THB POST.] AUCKLAND; This Day. An interview with Mr. C. K. Wilson, M.P., in regard to the King Country settlers, published in the Herald on Monday last, i» being freely criticised a> Te Kuiti (says the Herald's correspondent). The inference drawn from Air. Wilson's statements is that many of the settlers in. tho district ,are undergoing a severe hardship, and tire in a state bordering on absolute want. Tho remarks with respect to the poor lands of the King Country are criticised by many people. Presumably the settlers referred to are the improved farm settlers, who were placed on the land in th 6 district a few yenrs ago. As a matter of faot, these settlements ate said to irtcl'udo some of the best land' in the King Country, and the worst of the lana held by them is capable of being turned into good dairy fofcnis. Mr. Eichoks, chairman of tho Waitomo County' Council, on being interviewed with reference to the statements madeby Mr, Wilson, said that the settlers who wenton to the land without capital had been assisted in the usual way by the Government in the matter of getting I(heir section* cleared and grassed, and had had ample' work provided for them on the roads at high wages. The ruling rate of wagea for labourers in the district was 10s a 1 day. Contractors were paying lls, and yet, men are leaving bushtelling. Contracts were nu» merous, and it was extremely difficult to obtain men to do the work. No settlers were suffering hardship, and on the face of things all were able to finance their sections and improve their position. In the case of very new settlements a groat distance Trom the railway, settlers, said Mr. Scholes, naturally expected a certain amount of "roughing it," and had to put up with clay roadu for a time, but none of these genuine settlers were complaining of their lot. At the present time no other district in the Dominion was showing greater ac tivity in developing its resources or in > tno matter -of public works than the j King Country. The Waitomo County Council had just called 'tenders for" metalling thirty-three miles of road at an estimated cost of nearly £267,000, and there were works in hand amounting to nearly £15,000. Oneof the local bank managers, when interviewed, said he could only class the statement . that the King Country setI tiers were in a bad way as an absurdity. With inference to the statement that the Government was charging settle cs too much for the land, a caeo had been cited. The facts were that in 1809 a settler took up a. section at> £3 10s an acre, and £200 was borrowed from the State Advances Department to effect im« provementv After th& land had been taken about eighteen months, the occupier died, and the section was recently put up. for auction by the Public Trustee, when it realised about £10 an acix* under the hammer. ■