South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1890.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6384, 27 November 1890, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1890.

The power of sheep, with a few squatters and shepherds behind them, to keep men off the land, to retard settlement, and even to drive men out of the country, was well shown by Mr Thomas Duncan in his election address at Oamarn. He said he had bad a turn down Hawke’s Bay to see what the country was like down there. It was a good deal like Oamarn. They had land there of equal value to that round about Oamaru, and they could go there for a long distance and only find a wool shed and a sheep station; a long distance lay between that and a few Maori huts; and another long distance between these and another sheep station. This was the land that was taken up by the 12 apostles. And how did they get it T By barter in rum and blankets with the Maoris. These 12 apostles got the land in that way, and then divided it among themselves. They acquii'ed all the best of the land, but left the bush land alone. Further on down the coast towards Masterton they would find settlement, and why ? Because the land was unfitted for sheep. It was bush land; there they would hear the clang of the axe and the crash of falling timber, preparatory to burning it off before it was fitted to carry stock, or fitted for cultivation. "Why should it be thus ? Why should men be compelled to endure such hardships and such labour when there are plenty of lands better suited for the plough, and the timber could have been prepared for future needs P Speaking of theexodos he said the colony lost over 10,000 men, because they were not at liberty to settle on the lands. These were men with some means—those who hadn’t spare cash had to stop behind—and were the men the colony could least afford to lose. And they all left because they could not get land to settle on. If the present Government had been like the previous one it would have opened up the best of “the Grown lands, and sooner than permit the exodus would have given the land away for nothing. We agree with Mr Duncan in this, that the ministry which took 1600 unemployed persons out of Auckland alone and put them on land, would have made a strong efiort to save to the colony some of the thousands who have left its shores, instead of saying, like Sir Harry Atkinson, that it would do the colony good, that they would make good immigration agents, and that they would come back to New Zealand bringing many more. They have not come yet, nor are likely to come, until a new colonising era sets in, and room is made for men on the open and roaded and railroaded lands which are now occupied by sheep.