CLOSER SETTLEMENT.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 1883, 31 March 1913, Page 3

CLOSER SETTLEMENT.

STATEMENT BY MR MASSEY. According to a telegram published yesterday a very large number of se'etions, comprising some 40,000 acres, have just b?en thrown open for selection in the Auckland district—including the famous Waikaka Block, in the Hauraki Plains. There were 4275 applications from 1092 applicants, for 113sectious. The rush for sections was so great that the Commissioner of Crown Lands, Auckland, had to hold the ballot in the Seamen's Mission Hall. The attention of the Prime Minister (the Hon. W. F. Massey) having been drawn to tnis ballot, he made the following statement to a Post representative : "This I believe to be the best piece of Crown land now remaining in the„iiands of the Government. I saw the block when I visited the Hauraki Plains some months ago, and I gave instructions that it should be opened for settlement at the earliest possible date. It is now being opened in compliance with iuy instructions. It is not only good land, but most of it has taken grass naturally, and is ready for stocking. The settler could go on to it one day with his stock and next morning send his milk to the factory. I anticipated a rush for these sections. "While, as I say, this is probably the best land that we have left, we have other land within a few nicies of this, which will be opened for settlement within a very few months: and, as will have been noticed, blocks are being opened almost every day in different parts of New Zealand. For instance, there is another very important ballot going on to-day—the Otanemomo Block, in Otago. This latter was a block which we purchased under the Land for Settlement Act just lately, and is good laud, fit for dairying, and I anticipate keen competition for the different sections."