THE MINISTER OF LANDS' ADDRESS.

Otago Witness, Issue 953, 25 April 1889, Page 16

THE MINISTER OF LANDS' ADDRESS.

The address :6f the Minister of Lands" to his constituents is conceived in the cheerful tone which' beqom'es a man 1 whp/ feels satisfied with himself and his belongings. Mr Eichardson, since he has been a member of the Government has stuck pretty closely to his last, and the information which he gave atWyndham on Monday night as to the results of his policy and administration tell very much in favour of his success. It appears strange to us that we should find no mention in the speech of the progress of the village settlement system ; and it is notorious that Mr Eichardson has small sympathy with Liberal devices for placing men without capital upon the land. Anything at all experimental he dreads, and it is not to such men as he that the people have to look for progressive legislation. But of late soundness has been far more required in the management of public affairs than openness to ideas, and Mr Eichardson has achieved an excellent record of useful work.

The Land Act ol> 1887 has been a distinct success. More important even than the surplus in its practical effect upon the progress of the colony is the advance of settlement at the satisfactory speed reported by Mr Eichardson. Three hundred and fiftyfour thousand acres of Grown lands, excluding pastoral land and small grazing runs, have been taken up during the past year, as against an average of 188,000 acres for the four preceding years. And when we further learn that the average of selections waa only 150 acres it is made evident that the settlement is of that kind which it is most to our interest to encourage. That the perpetual lease system should be regarded with such favour by selectors is not to be wondered at now that it has a purchasing clause attached to it, but we should doubt the wisdom of consequently abolishing the deferred payment system. We cannot see how any complication arises from the concurrence of the two systems. The essence and the merit of the present Land Act, to our mind, lies in its allowing people to settle on the land under whatever tenure they prefer. All tastes are suited. Mr Eichardson is further entitled to credit for the practical good sense with which he has dealt ■with the question of pastoral tenure ; and, as far as we can judge, he has done good service to the pastoral industry •without any injury to the paramount interests of agriculture. But whilst we entirely agree with him. as to> the uselessness of driving' off one flock of sheep to put on another, and the statement he makes about the Kurow runs is certainly not favourable to the small grazing system, we shall want more evidence than that before condemning the system. Mr Eichardson seems to be ever in a hurry to condemn any departure from the lines in favour of which he is personally prejudiced. Finality in' land legislation is far from being reached yet in any part of the" world; and whilst such experimentation as Mr Ballance indulged in is very mischievous, it is desirable to give a fair trial to methods for inducing the settlement of men of' the smallest means. All the evidence is in favour of the village settlements being successful wherever they are placed in districts in which the settlers can obtain work from larger farmers, and under judicious guidance the system is capable of advantageous extension. No one who knows Mr Eichardson could suspect that the mistake about runs 28 and 28a was more than a mistake, though it is one for which he justly deserves blame, even though the result may not be of much importance. We were not unprepared for his statement about the arrears of deferred payment and the result of the official revaluation. After this season, at any rate, there can be no _ excuse for arrears, and -the Minister should be supported by the House in putting the law into operation against , defaulters. With regard to the Mines department, Mr Eichardson has been a' ■needed antidote to Mr Larnaeh as in the Lands department to Mr Ballance ; but there is more than a grain of truth in the nickname which he quotes against himself, and we should like him to have mentioned • anything which he had done for the feenefit of the mineral industries. True, he deserves credit for firmness in resisting expenditure, and this is no | small merit, but of positive achieveaient we at least know noW Jn, conclusion, we note that he' gasre^ some very sensible advice to young; pien to select and clear bush :

land. The subjugation of the wilderness is not perhaps the only true,, colonisation, but it is at least the most important part of it. ' When,' however;! this generation is compared unfavbur(ably with its ancestors in regard to I willingness to face the hardships of j pioneering, it has to be remembered that the rewards in those days were more tempting. Nevertheless we know of numerous instances in which men with very small capital have within the last few years made a competence by selecting and clearing bush land, and we trust that the practice will become more frequent. ,