THE MIGRATION PROBLEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15489, 22 December 1913, Page 6

THE MIGRATION PROBLEM

The report on migration of the British Board of Agriculture only emphasises, what has long been known, that the desire for the freehold is the greatest of all influences in migration. The Reform land acts have made optional freehold the general settlement tenure of New Zealand, but we still lack a thoroughly organised policy in which immigration and settlement would be effectively conjoined. In this connection. it is well to consider whether the time may not be opportune to revive in a modernised form the small holding system so popular in the early days of the colony. Forty or fifty acres of good land, reasonably accessible and intelligently worked, will readily support a family and would prove a great inducement to many land hungry British. Canada offers a larger area to all comers, but the Canadian winter is a very serious drawback. That such a stream of British settlers has poured into Canada indicates the tremendous attraction exerted by this prospect of a freehold farm upon the population of the United Kingdom and North Europe. There is no reason why a similar prospect should not be held out by New Zealand, for there are still huge tracts of unoccupied land in ' the North Island, much being in districts which are or ought to be traversed by railways, and thus made sufficiently accessible for the closest settlement.