WAKAMARINA LAND

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 71, 25 March 1914, Page 7

WAKAMARINA LAND

£to the editor.}

Sir, —In connection with, the report of the special meeting of (the Marlborough Land Board, which, appeared in Thursday's Express, no doub^ the most barefaced attempt is being made to grease the fatted pig,' or, in other words, to give a third addition of land to the men named at :the meeting, viz., Messrs Ahem, Crispin, and Lawson. What makes the case more glaring is that the first and lastnamed' have done very little towards improving the block they .obtained. The position is, Will the Minister for Lands approve .this further addition -to these men when there are some 20 or more bona fide landless men anxiously waiting who would be quite content to get. half the amount of land held by any of the three P AVhat is more astounding, the new piece of land does not join any one of the three places; ithere is the Wakamarina River between them; and why, I ask, is Mr Basmussen, the first applicant for a piece of this land, ignored by the Board altogether? This man has one acre and a residence under the Mining Act, with a nice cottage,••a wife and two children: He has waited-and workied for the last ten years to get' 150 acres of this land, his last attempt being a petition to the Minister for Lands signed by 90 persons, many of them good bona fide, settlers. , The question is now, Will the Minister,1 when he has the- thing -to" the' bottom, approve of giving mdre land to. ijien who nave 'a' lot of their last addition unimproved? Because it must1 be patent to him that members of the, Marlborough' Lund Board are acting "in a most extraordinary manner. The Commissioner (Mr Skinner) will no doubt be. asked by the Minister for Lands how he accounts for this strange desire to give these three men more land when they are doing so little to improve their'last block, which was somewhere between one and (two hundred acres each. Mr Massey said in of his Marlboroiigh speeches that he was putting intelligent men on the Land Boards. If there are many cases such as this one and Mr Massey confirms them, I think his. reign will be short and sweet.

FAIR PLAY,