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Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XX, Issue 3908, 17 May 1877, Page 2

Hawke's Bay is not the only place where the special settlement associations and the Waste Lands Board are at loggerheads. The Wairantpa News 3ays : — " The resolution of the Waste Lands Board re the Makahaka Block is wholly inexplicable, either as a question of principle or of policy. It is clearly at variance with the intention of the legislature. * * * The resolution, as adopted by the board, virtually strikes at the root of special settlement as a system. Now the fact is that by that means and that means alone the great work of colonisation in New Zealand has been mainly promoted. Otago, Canterbury, Nelson, and Taranaki are all notable examples in point. The former, which was inaugurated as an enterprise by the Free Church of Scotland, is admittedly the most j>rogressive centre in the colony. Antiquated notions have been promulgated that the tendency of these settlements is of a non-progressive character. Such, however, is not the case. The neighboring settlement of Feilding has already spent' £60,000 on improvements, and has been a means of introducing not fewer than 1500 souls into the place." At a meeting of the members of the association, one of the speakers remarked — "He had a strong suspicion the Association had been the means of making a false impression on the minds of certain members of the Board as to the intrinsic value of the land, and that they (the members) were anxious to reserve it for the speculative purposes of themselves and their friends."