The Evening Star TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1908.

Evening Star, Issue 12926, 14 April 1908, Page 4

The Evening Star TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1908.

Tt is to lx> hoped that the Land Purchase Board and the Government

<'!o«e will see their way to give Settlement. ofTeot- to the request submitted by the deputation that waited upon the .Minister of Lands at Balclutha yesterday. Mr M'Xab can hardly have failed to be impressed by the arguments advanced by the spokesmen of the Close Settlement League (Mr D. Stewart) and the flavor of Balclutha (Mr S. Wright). .As we said on Saturday, the land hunger throughout Citato i.s very keeji, and nowhere is the err for close settlement more persistently heard than in the country round about Balclutha. It is specially desired that the Government should endeavor tu acquire either the Clifton or the Otanomomo Instate. Tho latter comprises 5,-106 acres, and (as the deputation pointed out) virtually inclGdea all the river flat land between Balclutha and Port Molynenx. Suitable subdivision would enablo this estate to support at least seventy farmers, though perhaps (if both cannot be purchased) Clifton would be a still more desirable acquisition. The 'successful subdivision at Tauiuata mav serve as an object-lesson to the Minister and the Board, and most of the people who failed to secure allotments at the Taumata ballot are eagerly waiting for fresh opportunities. Some, of course, must lie doomed to permanent disappointment: it is impossible for tho Government, with their limited resources, to find a farm for everv man who wishes to take up land—more's the pity!—but the margin of failures in this respect should be as small as possible, and it is incontestable that farther enterprise on tho part of tho Lajid Purchase Board is practicable and necessary in the Clutha district. In replying to tho deputation, Mr M'Nab was noticeably sympathetic—apparently in no merely conventional sense —and he showed (as on previous occasions) that ho u; fullv alive to the requirements of the situation. He observed, justly enough, that negotiation for the purchase of land was not his own administrative act; tho Land Purchase- Board are at least tho ostensible, agents ; though we may remark in passing that this fact would scarcely be held to absolve tho Minister of rcsponeibility in caee of slackness, seeing that, after all, Ministerial policy must always be the really influential motive of the Board's doings. Mr M'Nab informed the deputation that the chairman of the Board was then in Otago, lookin" up certain properties under offer, and " he "would communicate at onco with that-

"and send in a. report to the Government." This is a. satisfactory assurance, so fax tie it goes, and we trust that no undue delav or hitch of any kind will stand in the road of effective developments.