CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 130, 3 June 1871, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SETTLEMENT OF TOE COUNTRY

To The Editok of the Nelson Evening Mail,

Sir, — I have no doubt the article headed " Our Wastß Lands," which appeared in a recent issue of the Mail, has been perused with interest by many of your readers besides myself, and I am quite sure that anyone who has travelled about the Province to any extent, and taken notice of the out-of-the-way holes and corners settlers have been driven into, aud the difficulties and inconveniences they have voluntarily submitted themselves to in the desire to make homes for themselves, will agree with the writer of the said article in his condemnation of the hard words aud cheap advice he refers to as being applied to the young men of Nelson. But in addition to the reforms hiuted at, namely, the facilities for obtaining land on easy terms and at a reasonable rale ; the doing away with "the uunecessary delay and trouble that attend purchase," and above all, the rectification of all defects arising from " the selfish desire of one class to exclude another from the benefits of ownership in the land;" in addition to all this, l say, it is necessury that the Government and the Couucil should give a great deal more of their attention to making the land accessible by good roads, to laying out townships aud villages, and making reserves for public purposes, and in this mauner supersede the partial, isolated, and unsatisfactory settlement by a systematic plan of colonisation carrying with it all the blessings and advantages of civilisation in the 6hape of schools, places of worship, libraries, medical attendance, &c. That under the present want of any such systematic plan the Waste Lands are miserably mismanaged, I could recite a long list of cases to prove. Only very recently a young man leased a piece of land from the Government, and after some trouble got the Government to survey a road to it for him. He then built his house and took his family to live on the spot, but he had not been settled down long before he was threatened with pains and penalties for using the road, part of which passed through some private property. Countless journeys to town and back are the consequences of this. Weeks and months the man is kept waiting in suspense on officials ; his hardearnings are dissipated, and the bit of barren hillside he has selected for his homestead, with a corner of bush to-split fencing in, and a patch for a garden, is made hateful to him by the mismanagement and indifference I am referring to. The wonder is, not that people do not settle down more, but that they do under present circumstances, attempt to settle down aft all. Another settler, after very nearly being driven out of the Province by the cry that there was no land to be had by dint of his own energy and perseverance, managed to find apiece to suit, him, but he had to cross the Motueka River three times and the Wangapeka once to get to it. He has to pack his wheat on horseback to get it ground, packing being the only kind of carriage available. And so, you find settlement, taking place, one stowed away here, another family stowed away somewhere else, whereas if the blocks of laud in the various valleys were laid out in sections, and roads made to them, there would be as many and more thriving villages and townships as there are- how struggling and isolated settlers living miles . away from one. another and enduring all sorts r of inconveniences and deprivations *" in 'consequence of such isolation. Yours, &c, A. M. L.