SETTLER OR SHEEP?

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 88, 10 October 1912, Page 3

SETTLER OR SHEEP?

A PRIVILEGED THIRTEEN WHERE 143 SETTLERS MIGHT FLOURISH LAND-LOCKEB HAWKES BAY. In Puketapu Riding, near Napier, thirteen occupiers, all but one of them being freeholders, hold 57,312 • acres, which should support 143 settlers. Allowing four to a family, the 143 settlers should found a com* mudity of 572 souls. And this is only one small riding in that great ■ sheep»walk, Hawkes Bay. The isolation of Napier is peculiar— both man nftd Nature cfeem to have conspired to set it apart. The town ie builfc on' (he old Scinde Island and on the flat surrounding it— an island in fact, were it not united with the mainland by three sandepits. Along one oi thcee runs the railway from Wellington and the South. Another eandepit (linked up by means of a bridge) forms the track of the railway construction northwards, now shut down. The third gives outlet by road to Taradale, aiM thence to Inland Psvtea. _ Seen from the grassy slopes of the "mainland," Napier indeed appearp' insular, a closely-populated hill and fiat, set <amid ocean and sands and inland sea. And a trip through what may be called the near hinterland in-tensifi-ee the impreesion of isolation. In forty oi- fifty miles of motoring through all classes of country— valley, flat, and hillside— keeping all the time within a radius of about nine miles of Napier, the number of homesteads passed would scarce be a score. In twelve miltts four were sighted. The traveller who passes from the Esk Valley by the Wharerangiroad to Puketapu will scarcely credit, when he notes the lack of habitation, that he has been travelling within such a narrow radius o* the provincial capital. Just .out . there on Scinde Island a human hive is humming, but the limestone slopes from which ho is gazing are still sheep-walks, just as they were sixty or seventy years ago, when the "Island" was itself a sheep station, For over half a century the sheep, or > the sheep kings, have held their own. The human hive has overflowed to the southwards, towards thriving Hastings, and,' to a certain ex- ■ tent, northwards towards Petane, but it cannot be said that even the fringe of the Napier hinterland has been touched. How many people in New Zealand realise that such a drive can be made through unsettled areas amid such country, and co near to the capital of such a province as Hawkes Bay. THE MAN WITH THE COW. Someone no doubt will arise to remark on the precipitous sheep country of South Karori, Happy Valley, etc., in the near hinterland of thrf Empire City itself. There is no parallel. This Hawkes Bay country can be settled in small areas j and, where the opportunity is allowed, the settler is succeeding. At a point on the Whaferangi V ; alley-road, where it reaches a lower level after a sharp descent, a farmer was seen driving dairy cows, one of the few dairy herds met with in these sheep-walks. Questioned, the said that his area was 210 acres (including some hill), his annual rent 15s 6d per acre, plus taxes, making in all 17s per - acre; so that he is probably paying more per year than was originally paid for the land. t But, with ' thd' aid of th<s cow, he is paying his way. With sheep it would not be possible, except by means of cultivation and root crops. Proceeding,' another ascent wa» breasted, and on top of a high saddle two hayseed veterans were met ,with, , who deemed that, in that locality, 566 acres would be a living area, with sheep or mixed farming. Just across the valley, they indicated, was a freehold block of 3500 acres. " (Subsequent investigation showed that the area of this block is a little over 3430 acres, and that the unimproved value is nearly £22,000, both of which figures are very modest for Hawkes "Bay.) Anyone who examines the rate books of the Napier Harbour Board and ascertains the occupation and ' ownership, areas, and unimproved values of the larger properties (that is, above an un* improved value of £10,000) in this Puketapu riding will realise what all this means. Appended are the figures, freeholds being placed first and Native land being added to their totals. The details are as they appear in the Napier Harbour Board's books to-day, and these are the official Government valuations. Where /'ratepayer" appears in the. owner column, it means that the ratepayer is HIbO the owner : . ' ' i-UKETAI'U. Unimproved Area, value. Ratepayer, Acres. £ Owner. Price, F. A. ... %1 lo.fioo Ratepayer Crosse. Thdfs, K. 10,774 24,080 Ratepayer Hartree, fly. ... 2,333 f1,7n3 Ratepayer Hirtree, By. ... 6,803 15,040 Ratepayer Htitchinsoii, J?. 3,8(«8 12,030 Ratepayer Nelson & Pinckney ... • ... 6,082 12,101 Ratepayer kelson & Pinck--«ey 1,489 2,163 Ratepayer North, Lowry W • 8,900 22,250 Ratepayer Patullo, Patrick 3,433 21,721 Ratepayer Peacock, W. M.* 5,703 12,014 Ratepayer Robertson, Pat. 4,858 10,678 Ratepayer Watt, Edward J. 4,338 6,783 Ratepayer Livigg, Frauds _C. ... ... 1,317 8,917 Ratepayer Livigg, Francis c 867 6,666 Ratepayer 65,772 171,260 livigg, Francis " „C. „, 131 1,427 Natives. Codd, Chas. ... 1..J08 18.732 Natives. Totals • ... 67,312 101,410 ♦Includes five areas. Having regard to the 210 acres and the 500 acres mentioned in the earlier Temarks, and to the general productivity of Hawkes Bay, it, will not be unfair to assume 400 acres to be, on the average, a living area. In this part of Hawkes Bay that figure is probably over the mark. Divided by 400, the big freehold areas in Puketapu, aggregating 55,/ it acres, should support 135) settlers and their families, or 556 people in all., allowing for an average of four to a' family. Tinder the present system, this huge area of splendid land is shown, in. the Harbour Board's books, to be in the hands of just twelve' occupiers, who hold between them land of an unimproved value of £171,260!" That is at the rate of 4647 acres apiece of this beautiful Hawkes Bay land, close to Napier; and the* unimproved value averages £14,271 each. Calculating oh the basis of the Native land figures—which add to the total 1540 acres, £20,139 unimproved value, -and only one occupier — the privilege of these thirteen holders bulks more largely still. In place of the thirteen, 143 settlers and their families should thrh'e. And these figured are fox the Puketapu riding aloji«. MOHAKA'S 810 BLOCKS-WHITE v AND BUOVVN. Puketapu has not been selected because the- figures there suit the case against large estates. It will probably be found that other districts farther couth, whose areas^and values will be analysed later, make a much stronger case. Puketapu is selected simply because th« writer in his wandering went that way. Before examining ■ the figures in riding* to the south, it may be as Well to deal with Mohaka and Petane, to the north, where the Napiftf-Watroa railway (now discontinued by' the Government) will 'vm. Here .are the Mohaka. figures for

blocks above £10,000 in unimproved value : — MOHAKA. Unimproved Area, value. Ratepayer. 'Acre*. £ Owner. Anderson, John and Co.* ... 88,300 13.G12 Natives. Bee, Frmicis O. 17,030 17,030 Natives. Campbell (Hugh) & Hoadley (V.) 4,671 13,038 Natives. Chamber*, Oeorgina 7,443 16,416 Crown. Dolbel. 11.I 1 . & R. 26,300 74,800 Native*. Donnelly, G. P, 13,003 32.507 Perry, Maud McKinnon, Donald -1.014 H,7-i<s Ratepayer McKinnon, John 4,727 18,562 pp t atepayer Vohokura Land Board ... 28,051 10,562 Ratepayer, Redwood, Joseph H 5,889 14,722 Ratepayer Tai t, Melvor, and others ... 5,139 10,121 Ratepayer Guthrie Smith, W. H 13,420 16,086 Native*. King, Josepht Totals 166,!)0? 253,101 ♦Anderson (John and Co.) also hold in Petane district 89,340 acres of' Native land of an unimproved value of £19,205. which gives their Native lartd holding a combined acieage of 125,640, and value of £32,817, tKing (Joseph) is ehowti in 'the books a« owning Jll3 acres with £368, and as holding 5660 acres, Of an unimproved value of £10,042, in three separate block*, two 'in Mohaka and one in Petane. PUBLIC EXPENDITURE AND BETTERMENT. The above table contrasts, of course, with that for Puketapu. The area is nearly three times as great, thfe unimproved value only about one-third greater; and a calculation of the settler* carrying capacity, similar to that made for Puketapu, cannot well be applied. But, unimproved as these areas are. their value is" over a quarter of a million; and. adding King's property and Anderson's Petane block, it is nearly £300,000. Moreover, there is excellent authority for saying that the selling values to-day are probably double the figures given. Land of that value, and aggregating over a quarter of a million acres, stands in the names of fifteen to twenty persons ! Arid this is the land for the appreciation of which the Government is — or was — building the Napier-Wairoa-Gisborne railway. One purpose served by the above figures is to driye home the argument advanced in the first of this series of articles — that the Government must not only burst up the big freeholds, but must secure the big Native leaseholds before adding hundreds of thousands of betterment to their value by the expenditure of public money. In about- two years and a-half Messrs. Dolbel's lease/pi tho ,26,300-acre block, which appears in the above table at a valuation of about &'& 16b per aero, will, it is understood, expire. This is Purahotangihia, the block which was Commended to the notice of the ( authorities in the first of these articles. Hawkes Bay anxiously awaits the Govemment'ij promised solution of the Native land pioblem. Given that and the railway, the small grazier, and eventually the mixed farmer will become a power in this Petane-Mohaka country Apart from the Nativo land, it will be noted that Mohaka contains four big freeholds, and there are five in Petane. Together these nine .aggregate 45,000 odd acres and over £145,000 iri .unimproved value, or a Government valuation of over £3 an acre. This again, one is assured, is belo-v the selling values of to-day. So Northern Hawkes Bay has by no means escaped the heel of the big freeholder, but his special dqmaiu is in other parts of the province, which will be considered in a further article. '