SETTLEMENT OF UREWERA LANDS

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 127, 30 May 1916, Page 4

SETTLEMENT OF UREWERA LANDS

At the provincial conference of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, a remifc to the effect that the Government be urged to open for settlement at once the land preserved to the Natives in. the Urewera was unanimously adopted.

Mr. 0. Keegan said the land comprised an area of 600,000 acres, and was firstclass country. Twenty years ago prospectors penetrated the country, and were reported to have discovered goldbearing country, but,. owing to trouble with the Natives, the Government declared it a preserve, and those restrictions had not since been removed. The land could be broken at a cost of .£4 per acre, which meant approximately an expenditure of £2,500,000, and i"t would produce about £1,000,000 per year revenue. The only portion of the country cultivated was about 4000 acres, which had been in the possession of Rua and his followers, and it was producing excellent crops. He asked that it be. surveyed and cut up. At present the Government was building a railway on the .boundary, and.the white settlers in the vicinity were erecting freezing works. which were to cost £100,000—two factors which would greatly enhance the Value of the area.