ANOTHER EXPOSURE. (Daily Times, June 13.)

North Otago Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8004, 18 June 1894, Page 4

ANOTHER EXPOSURE. (Daily Times, June 13.)

It will be remembered that rocently, in ivn articlo dealing with the question ot Und sottlemnnt) wo set forth a comparative table showing the actual <etbleraont for the pasb five yoars. 'he figures tuusb havo been a littlo ntartling to a gjod many people, inasmuch as thoy showed clearly <'nou<{b that tho claims mado by and <>u bohalf ot tho Govornmout that they hud greatly accelerated the progress of -.ottlomonb wore purely pr«tonco and iloluaion. Needless to say the protonco was on the part of tho Government aud tho dolusion on tho part of tho good people who believed in their statemoats. In order to geb a reliable survey ot tho actual settlement we emitted tho sraa'.l grazing rum and the special settlement associations. Ihe sumll grazing runs we-o omitted because, as overybody knows, they do •lot represent sottleraont in tho ordinary sense of tho term, but grazing vor considerable aroas of inferior land in its native atato. Tho associations woro proporly omitted, becauso tho mon composing them woro admittedly "Ot on the land, while numbors of them li.ive ainco duliberatoly abandoned tho light thoy had acquired under tho system to go upon it. To include such "Isottlotnont" is deliberately to mislead t ho public, and to enablo any Minister who is not troubled with scruples to hliow a bottor paper record than his (i edecessois, when actual settlement may have diminished under him the while, lho Lyttelton Times challenges our position, but in so vory half-hearted a manner as to show thab it also has suiforod a shock in the dissipation of the settlement dolusion. Ib begins by calling our article a u romarkablo declaration," and ends by loaving ib still quite as remarkable — for bhe exposure io makes Our contemporary dwells especially on tho omission of the small graz ng runs. By all moans, thorefoio, ht them bo included, aud indeed havo tin same form of table all to thornsolves, Ib will bo as follow* :

Our contemporary will therefore see hat had we included tho runs in ques- • iou thoy would have sttengthened lathci* than weakened our original Inures. Tho number of small runs was groater aud the area per man smaller in 1339 than in 1893. But no argument from the fact is to bo drawn ia favor of tho late Government, sinco id is very questionable whother tho mall run policy has not largely ro'luced to the colony the value of mountain areas and at tho same time much reduced the employment of labor u tho country districts. But tho Lyttelton Times must be very hard pressed indeed for argumonb whon it abandons the sobtlomenb returns and tails btck on the agricultural sbatisttcs. Tho cultivated holdings it declares havo increased during the past year by 24G8—whenco our contompor.iry argues thab it is j" reasonablo to Ajnime tint a largo portion of thorn waa occupied uudor tho liboral torms offered by tho Government. What on oarth is bho uso of making assumptions, casoDab o or unreasouable, whon the uctual settloment " uudor tho liboral i uruis offered by the Government" is set lown for us in block and white by tho departmentl? Does our contomporary wish the colooy to believe that tho oulbivatoi holdings never increasod in tho paso by more than 2100 in any ono year 1 Wo have no desire to disparage the efforts of tho lion Mr M'Keuzio ; but, io uho bit own favorite and solitary provorb, " Facts are chiela thab winna ding." Lub wo supecb thab misstatemonis will ultimately "ding" whon tho moral sense of tho community is iwakeuod to the nature and extent of tbo deception that has boon practiaed. Tho statoment mado by Mr M<KoD/.iu(to help a caudidato ab an election) that in 1892 ho " had pub 1710 settlers on the land " under the ihsocation system, when the roturns ahowed tbo real number as 13, has ilready gono through tho "dinging" procebs And the statemont mado ab Tiraaru tho other day thab he had II pub 1000 settlers a year more on the land than his predecessors" is alto»otho. too audac.ous to require" dinging." For, of course, if all tho association paper eettloment weio included anJ no retirements, forfeitures, or .bandoQment3 had taken place, oven thon tbo increase would nob have amounted to half what he declared ib had. If Mr M'Kenzio would only allow his work to spoak for itself, and stick closely to bho actual facts, he would probably in tho main come oub creditably enough as a land administrator. But tho facts as they stand show thab a vtry great injustice has boon done to tho lion, G. F. Richardson, who with all his faults was every whit as successful as Mr M'Keuzie in tho work of settlement; tho only difference being that) ho did his work ia a quiob and unostentatious manner, whilo his successor makes a prodigious noiso over what he does.™

fi aver* No. of Small ToUl Year. Run- Aica. hohlcia. ISS9 81 101,052 IS9O 33 00,340 1891 43 80,101 1592 80 159,401 ISM 39 U 2.920 ago Run Per Mini. 199.5 1724 2004 1993 2352 Govern' nient in Oflice Atkinson Atkinson Atkinson Killancc •ScJdun