THE HAMLETS AT AVONDALE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12000, 24 June 1902, Page 7

THE HAMLETS AT AVONDALE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — Mr. Bollard's address the other night at Avondale yon report him, when speaking of land for workingmcn's homes, as condemning the regulations! that had been drawn up for their selection. It now transpires that the Government purchased nt £12 per acre, and have now loaded it to £20 per acre, and in the case of some sections to £60 per acre. • I went and looked at the hamlets. I have been amongst land all my life, and now say that not one aero of the land I saw was worth £20. " I ask, what could you get out of an acre after paving working costs, and if a building is erected, even the munificent workingman's palace, at £50, which the conditions, insist must be erected? For instance, take the Metliuen Hamlet. In addition to the price placed on tho land, trees growing on the land are charged for, which are occupying the whole land, taking all the substance "out of it for chains beyond where they are growing. Old fences are intersecting the sections, and the rails and posts broke when I got over; old acacia hedges are growing, that have pretty well impoverished the land. All are chargcd for. The Cradock Hamlet is not worth 10s an acre, while the Kitchener Hamlet, of fair land, is not worth over £15 to £20 an acre. And it is all priced at £60. I say, Mr. Editor,. that our Liberal and paternal (awfully paternal) Government must look upon workingmen as a set of fools, and as rooks to be plucked. Another liberal condition is that the first half-year's rent must be paid in advance. Now, say a working man took up two acres; that is, £6 per annum. He built a house at £150, to accommodate hi 3 family], say, six; he spends £10 fencing; extra price for food, etc.. during the year, £10: railway fares for all, an-, other £10, or £15, and rates £1 10s, and time and inconvenience, travelling one hour a day, being 30 days and a-half, and that for each of his family at work. All this would just total about £54 per annum, while he can got a very good house in town for about 8s to 10s per week, and his wife and family all at hand, and can turn their time to the best advantage. Do you wonder, Mr. Editor, that workingmen won't look at, let alone jump at, the parental Government s fatted calf. I prepared • all the papers to make application, but when it came to the advanced rent I stopped short, roy pastexperience of the Government not being such as to entice me to part. I have paid £9 10s rent in advance, 21s for lease, and never got on to the land, but before the first six months was up had got notice that my lease would not be renewed. My money was kept, and I have spent over £100 on stuff, preparing to take possession, nor to this day have I got any consideration whatever, although I was pretty well ruined by the Government's action. That is part of my experience.— am, etc., * Thomas Allan.