Settlement: Of a Kind.

Southland Times, Issue 13737, 26 April 1897, Page 3

Settlement: Of a Kind.

The failure of the 1450 Crown settlers in the Wellington province to carry oub their obligations to the Crown it but an example of the condition that a great [many settlers have fallen into. In and out of season we have raised our voice against the system of settlement that the present Minister has introduced, pointing out that it was impossible for it to be a success. For this outspokenness we have been told that our Conservative tendencies have closed our eyes to the beneficial effects of land settlement generally. We are told that all things come to those who wait, and we have been content to wait. The complete failure of the system of settling rough land in the Wellington province is the answer to those who have supported through thick and thin the land settlement policy of the Government. To any intelligent person the system carried failure in its face, and failure it has been with a vengeance. We think lees of the Ministerial failure than of the poor unfortunate settlers who, induced partly by the prospects of success held out to them and partly by total ignorance of land settlement, undertook to do a thing that an experienced man would have scouted. There are 1450 Crown settlers in arrears in the Wellington province. Of these 800 have paid nothing at all,and 650 have paid L 4600. -We believe the L 4600 represents but a fraction of the amount they owe. The Minister for Lands in the first years of his assumption of office endeavoured to put up a record in the way of settling the people on the land. The above is part of his record. It was inevitable that the system of settlement would end in disaster, and many papers pointed this out, and were at once dubbed the enemies of the people and of settlement by newspapers that are paid to sing the praises of the Government. Is not this record of the great Wellington disaster an answer to the laudation of those who were always well paid for their applause ’ Mr McKenzie, we are glad to know, has put aside a great deal of the rashness with which he entered on the conquest, by deputy in the shape of settlers, of the rocks and bush lands of the Wellington province. Settlement cannot be gauged by the number put on the land, but by the success of the 'settlers. The resumption of private lands affords the best prospect of success, although here there are also many elements of failure, the greatest being the fact that tenants have to pay rent all the days of their lives, the rent going out of the colony is a never-ending stream to the money leader at Home. The settlers, however, can only look for relief to a change in the administrators of the colony or to a change in the opinions of those now holding office. No one holds a stronger belief in the efficacy of land settlement to assist the colony than we do, but the settlers must be afforded every reasonable means of success. That we are not affording at the present time. We hope for this expression of opinion we shall not be dubbed opponents of land settlement all along the line. To some people the fact that the Hon. John McKenzie has recently adopted our views should be proof that we have been right, and the Minister wrong.— North Otago Times.