LAND FOR IMMIGRANTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1465, 13 December 1879, Page 12

LAND FOR IMMIGRANTS.

At the Land Board on Wednesday, Mr C. S. Rekves moved — " That a statement be prepared of lands open for selection in this Provincial District, specifying the district and nearest post town, quantity, description, and quality of lands, terms of payment, and other information which may be of value to intending selectors j and that the same be printed and two or three copieß forwarded to all post and telegraph offices throughout the Provincial District." The mover, in bringing the motion forward, referred to the difficulty experienced, more especially by immigrants, in obtaining information relative to land open for settlement. There were persons arriving • at present in some numbers who had money to invest in land in the country, but there was positively no means by which they could obtain Information about where land was open. He was strongly of opinion some such officer as Mr Short, in the Land Office, should be appointed, to whom Buch persons might apply. He also suggested that the Land Office should be in a more prominent position in the.Government Buildings. Under the present state of things, not even the Board knew what land was available, and immigrants, instead of having every facility given them to acquire Government land, were driven to the offices of land agents and speculators. The Chaibmah (Mr Ma'tland) said he had to some extent anticipated the proposal just made. He was having prepared a large placard for exhibition in the public offices, and in public places such as railway stations, &c, * containing particulars of the various blocks now open for selection, beginning in the north at Kurow, then coming to the Merton Hundred, to the land shortly to be opened at Waipori, and so on. . The particulars would com. prise information as to the extent of each block, under what system it could be taken up, its quality, and its distance from the nearest railway station, &o. He might add, in connection with the matter, that the officials in the department gave every possible facilty to intending selectors seeking information, but a difficulty existed in this that did not exist in other districts through the complications arising in connection with the taking up of land. Thus new arrivals fresh from the Old Country got mystified by being told that one block could only be taken up on deferred payments, another only on agricultural lease, another as land of special value, &c. This was quite different to the Canterbury system, by which a selector could pick bis land and buy it at L 2 per acre. It would perhaps be a good idea to nave a room set apart in which the maps of the various block could be kept and an officer stationed in order to give inquirers all necessary inform*, tion. . ' i Mr Bastings would second Mr Beeves' motion, and spoke of the necessity of the Board's offering every facility to intending selectors. He quite agreed that, if possible, the Land Office should be in a more prominent part of the building., : ; ■ During a further discussion, Mr Beeves urged that the Board should act more like private owners of land in the way of affording information to buyers, and considered a return such as he proposed was highly neoeßßary. Mr Clabk said the real evil at the root of the whole matter was that the Board had no good land left to offer intending settlers. He knew pretty well the whole of the blocks that were open for occupation, and. he did not know any single place to which he could direct a man' in Bearch of say 190 to 200 acres upon which he intended to settle and make his living. The Chairman agreed that this was the real difficulty. Every piece of decent land put en the market was at once snapped up. Mr Reeves maintained that a good deal oE Cable and Drummond's block at Waipori was quite fit for agricultural settlement by small owners. Mr Clabk and the Chairman ridiculed the idea. No farmer would look at the land. Mr Bastings said he knew of a quantity of deferred - payment Crown land of excellent quality in the Southland district, fronting the Waimeft Plains railway, which was still open. He mentioned thfe for public information. Mr Reeves : And for the information of the Board. We don't know what we've got The Chairman : We haven't got that, at any rate, for it's in the Southland district.— (Laughter.) Mr GbeeN contended that he, as a member of the Board, knew very thoroughly what land woa open for occupation. Mr Beeves forgot that the Board were the creatures of the Act. They were bound to dispose of the land as the Act provided— not aa they might do if they were private individuals. It should be remembered that the immigrants coming here were people of Old Country notions. The were cautious and had small means, and wished to make a start here with 50 or perhaps 100 acres of land. The Board could offer them no land iv sections of that size that would keep them. If the members of the Board could act as private parties could, no doubt if a man came to them with money to' buy an acre of land they would sell it to him ; but they had to s«ll Crown land in the way the Legislature in its wisdom had provided. He would not vote against the motion, but its carrying-out would entail a great expense and would do no good. The return would only mystify new-comers unless some officer were provided to explain it to them. It would be ridiculous to place it in the hands of country postmasters to give information on the subject. A special man would have to be sent along with the return to every post office. He" claimed to be as anxious as anyone to Bee new-comers given every information, but there were difficulties which he did not see his way to overcome. After some farther discussion, Mr Gbeen referred to the fact that a large quantity of the best agricultural land was looked up in education reserves. These could only be leased, and the difficulty here was that new arrivals generally had a great objection to leasing. They wished to purchase outright. v Mr Bastings agreed with this. There were 500,000 acres in education reserves, and half of that was excellent land— whoat land, in fact. The intention had been that this land should be operated on in the usual way, and the proceeds funded for educational purposes, but it had now been placed under the control of a special body of commissioners, and the result appeared to be that nobody could deal with it. He instanced a large block at Switzers which the residents had struggled for years to get thrown open, but it had been made an education reserve, and the people had given up thinking about it. The Chairman repeated that the placard he intended to have prepared would do away with the necessity for the return proposed, and he stated that it might be got; ready before next week, whereupon Mr Beeves agreed to allow his motion to stand over for a week, and the subject then dropped. The Framneße baby -farming case has been concluded. John and Catherine Bayne, who were charged with the murder of three children entrusted to their charge, were convicted on the minor charge of manslaughter, and sentenced to penal servitude for life.