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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4271, 27 November 1874, Page 2

Our readers will recollect that we recently commented on the glaring contrast which Nelson presents to the rest of the colony, and attributed its all but hopeless stagnation to the systematic mismanagement of its provincial rulers. The Colonist attempts to justify the .past. It says, in, an apologetic kind of way, after quoting from our article ; —'f We do not deny that our ' mountains are filled -with minerals and covered by timber,' but we certainly do say that the ' large tracts of arable land' exist only in the imagination of the Times writer. It is true that we have tracts of arable land, but not large tracts. Prom the first mooting of the question in the Provincial Council of bringing immigrants to this province, we have contended that, until the General Government or capitalists took some steps to develop our vast coal and iron deposits, a continuous stream of one hundred and fifty immigrants per month was too many to bring into the province. Heavily timbered land and mineral deposits require capital for their development', which most of the immigrants do not possess." Now, we should like to ask our contemporary, what has become of ; the fine tracts of alluvial land in Nelson province? Are they available for settlement, or aro they locked up against beneficial occupation by a pernicious system of land monopoly, under color of law? If "they are so locked up, who is responsible? The colony cannot bo expected to find capital and labor to create wealth in Nelson for the exclusive benefit of the largo territorial proprietors and pastoral tenants, who neither employ labor nor till the soil. Marlborough is in a precisely similar condition, and it is a positivo injustice to the rest of the colony that things should be permitted to remain for long as they are at present. .