Hawke's Bay Herald THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1877.

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

Hawke's Bay Herald THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1877.

The "Waste Lands Board meets to-day, and the most important matter that will come before it is the question of the Special Settlements in the Seventymile Bush. As regards the Victoria Association, we imagine that matters are likely, at last, to be put on such a footing that the settlers will get on to their land in time to have some of the felling done this year. We trust that the Bush Mills and Springrove settlers may be equally fortunate. They have a very strong claim to favorable consideration. The former settlement was initiated in the days of the late Superi intendent, and there is no doubt whati ever that if he had been now in office,it Avoukl have been, by this time, an accomplished fact. Several of the members of it have thrown up their situations or disposed of their properties with the view of going on to their land, and if the Board now decides that they shall not have the block, we imagine that these settlers will have a strong claim for compensation against the Government. They will have anequitable claim, at any rate, such as we trust the Assembly would listen to,whether they have a strictly legal claim or not. "We quite understand the nature of the objection which the Board has to oiler, and we can only say that if Mr Ormond had allowed the same or similar objections to stand in the way of the settlement of the Bush, not even a commencement of settlement would, to this day, have been made. In opening \ij> new country it is necessary to swallow a good many gnats, and even a camel or two occasionally. The distinguished English savants who reported on the state of our surveys were evidently of ojnnion that the land of the colony should not have been made use of at all, \nitil a few millions had been spent on major and minor triangulations, and until the precise latitude and longitude of every cabbage tree had been definitely settled. They point out with great force the enormous evils that may in future arise on account of overlapping surveys. But the truth is that a system of surveys such as they recommend would have cost ten times as much as the whole value of the land to be surveyed at the time. The practical question that the governments of the day had to deal with was — should they shut up the

land till it could be thus surveyed, or should they open it and run the risk of such disputes as might in future arise. They decided — Avisely, we believe, in spite of the savants — in favor of the latter course. Mr Ormond acted on a similar principle in reference to difficulties of another description in the case of the Bush blocks. The Board have not hitherto followed his useful example. It may not, however, still be too late for them to retrace their steps and follow it. We feel satisfied that they may set their minds at ease with regard to the sentiments of the Bush Mills settlers in reference to the question of title. So far as we can learn, all that they wish is to be put upon the land. They will be quite content to be, legally, in the same position as their neighbors on the Heretaunga Special Settlement Block. As for going across the Manawatu river on to the Paketoi Block, there is not one of them, we are perfectly certain, who will listen to the proposal for a moment.