THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND.

Feilding Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 38, 7 September 1905, Page 2

THE PEOPLE AND THE LAND.

I havo frequently mentioned (writes the Victorian correspondent of the Sydney Mail) that there is a mystery about how the people are kept off the unoccupied landa of this State. The enquiry which is taking place in regard to the Lands Department of New South Wales seems to throw some light upon the subject. Apart from the alleged evil practices under investigation, it seems that there is a complicated system of la>vs and regulations which stand between the land and the settler. In this State there are not supposed to be any money influences at work in the Lands Department, put there is certainly a complicated system of laws and regulations which ought to be swept away. It is so impossible to get land made available for. settlement that the public blame the Minister for the time being, and those who do not blame the Minister oharge the officers of the Department. Perhaps neither are to blame, but the mam cause why the lands are locked up is the tangle of laws and regulations which Parliament has framed from time to time. When it ia remembered that these laws were intended to facilitate settlement, the fact that they produce the very opposite effect is a serious reflection upon the powers of legislation. Nearly every zealous Land Minister has passed an Act of his own, and the result is that no Government seems able to let the settler on the land. Perhaps the next step will be to sweep all the Acts away.