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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXXI, Issue 10236, 3 January 1894, Page 4

We notice that certain Conservative journals are raising a pessimistic cry regarding tho land settlement policy of the G-overament of New Zealand, and are predicting all sorts of disaster from it. The cry is not a new one, nor are the predictions now heard for the first time; but these Conservative prophets have a wonderful faith in their own infallibility which no amount of falsification seems to impair. The lease in perpetuity is declared to be a direct incitement to land speculation, and the special settlement scheme a moans of placing on the land people who are altogether unfitted for country pursuits. The advantages of freehold we are ready to admit, but it has never yet been contended that immunity from land speculation was one of these advantages. In fact, the leasehold system is the death of speculation, and hence the wail of the Conservative organs and their attempt to misrepresent the effects of the lease in perpetuity. As for the special settlements, we should prefer a grain of fact to a ton of prophecy. Our various systems of land settlement have produced the very beat results, and have won admiration from men litre the Yictorian Minister of Lands, who have come to this colony with strong prejudices against leasehold tenure and powerful pr|-

possessions in favour of other methods than ours. With a man of Mr John M’Kenzie’a practical experience, prudence, and sagacity at the head of the Laud Department, we hare every confidence that the predictions and forebodings of political opponents will come to nought. The Conservatives, in fact, overdo the business of criticism so flagrantly that it degenerates into senseless fault-finding. While the local organ of Conservatism is finding fault with the Government for nob purchasing estates offered to it at exorbitant rates, the two Conservative papers of Hawke’s Bay are warning Ministers that they are in danger of ruining the country by their craze for land settlement, and by their simplicity in paying too dearly for land acquired for settlement purposes.

The right course lies between these two extremes, and that the Government has failed to satisfy the Conservative extremists is presumptive proof that it is following the safe via media . Of the 270,000 acres of land now under offer to the G-overnment, we have no doubt that some portions will be acquired, to tbe advantage of the community ; but it is as ridiculous to assume that Ministers will use their parliamentary majority for the purpose of authorising purchases that will ruin the country, as it is to pretend that they are insincere in their land policy because they do not buy every man’s estate at his own valuation. A great safeguard in New Zealand is the fact that our laud settlement policy is not being forced on at a feverish rate, but is proceeding normally, and under no special pressure of industrial depression. In this way, those people possessing fitness for country life are by a process of natural selection placed upon the land, and there is an absence of such failures as have been experienced in Victoria. Our well-managed Labour Bureau and our system of co-operative public works have obviated the necessity for “ rushing ” the unemployed on to the land after the style adopted in the neighbouring colony; and the idea of relief farms is being patiently and exhaustively considered, so that when it is projected into fact it may produce the results desired.