The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1888. THE LAND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1699, 16 February 1888, Page 2

The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1888. THE LAND.

A meeting was held one day last week in a place called Kurow, in the neighborhood of Oamaru, at which a resolution was carried censuring the Government for declining to cut up the Kurow run into small grazing farms. We are not astonished at this; in fact, what surprises us is that a great many more indignation meetings are not held to protest against the present Government's land policy. We were told during the last election that everything necessary for dealing with those runs had been done, and that the Acts already on the Statute Book were quite sufficient. There was some truth in this. The Acts already on the Statute Book were pretty liberal, but the present Government have repealed such portions of them »s were liberal, and replaced them by most illiberal enactments. One of the amendments made in the Land Act deals directly with the question of runs. In the Land Act of 1885 the Stout-Yogel Government provided for dealing with land specially adapted for small grazing runs. Clause 198 of the Act says that small grazing runs “shall not comprise a greater area than 5000 acres,” but this was repealed by the Act of last session, and now the limit of the area of these runs is increased to 20,000 acres. It will be seen from this that the present Government aim at playing directly into the hands of the runholders, but there is still much better evidence to show what class they wish to favor. Hitherto in all cases the Government have fixed the rent payable to the Crown at 5 per cent, on the capital value of the land, but the present Government have changed this to per cent, in favor of “ holders of pastoral deferred-payment licenses.” No such concession has been made to any other class, so far as we know. All others must pay their 5 per cent., but the “ holders of pastoral deferredpayment licenses ” are allowed to retain the land at a rental of 2% per cent. We do not exactly know who these “holders of deferred-payment pastoral licenses ” are, but so far as we can make out by reading the “ gibberish ” which passes for the English language in which the clauses dealing with them are couched, they are persons who bought runs under the deferred-payment system, but were not able to keep up their payments. These are now constituted perpetual leaseholders at a rental of 2\ per cent. Happy people to get money at 2\ per cent.! Many a poor man has been unable to keep up his deferred payments, and has had to forfeit his holding without anyone caring one straw wlat became of him, and now there is no provision made for his relief in the new Act. Poor dupe! Nobody cares for him, and serve him right, for he and his class do not look after their own interests!

VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS. Few schemes have been introduced into an Act of Parliament so humane and so useful as the village settlement scheme. The present system of village settlement is tar from perfect. Too many people are congregated together on one spot, and consequently there is not sufficient employment for all of them in the immediate neighborhood of the settlement. Ibis, of course, has great disadvantages, and frequently makes the settlers discontented. The settlements ought to have been limited to about a dozen holdings, and established at regular distances from each other. They should be placed in centres where employment could easily be obtained, so thal settlers could always he within easy distance of their work, and if this were done village settlements would be the greatest boon ever extended by an Act of Parliament to working men. This conclusion was forced upon us by what we saw a few days ago in the township of Arowhenua. This township is not exactly the model village settlement we have been advocating, but the reyerse. The holdings are far too small, and too many people have been huddled together in too limited an area. Still, although it has its drawbacks, there are to be found there telling evidence of the benefits of giving working men a place whereon to build a home for themselves. The holdings vary in size from to an acre, and on these little allotments comfortable little cottages have been built. Some are made of sod, covered with thatch, some of wood, and some cob, while there are not a few substantial houses amongst them. Adjoining each dwelling is a garden for the most part verv nicely laid out in potatoes and other kinds of vegetables, while many of them make a good display of flowers and fruit trees. Now almost all the settlers in this settlement commenced life there very poor, and, in the face of the hard times which hsve been experienced for years past, there cannot be the slightest doubt but they would have experienced great destitution only for having these little plots of land. If they had had to buy out second-hand from landowners the little homesteads they now possess, they would never have been able to do it, they could never have put suflu.- The inducer ficient monu, - themselves ment to secure a h0m0... has had the result of making economical, frugal, and thrifty. There |

aro in the settlement pretty close on 100 settlers, and we venture to say there is scarcely a drunkard amongst them. "We do not desire to be misunderstood. We do not say that the people of the village settlement of Aiowhenua are a bit better than other people, for they are not. They are flesh and blood and human nature just like other people, and we do not suppose that they themselves would lay claim to the possession of virtues which other people do not possess. The inducement to secure a home by means of deferred payments has inculcated a spirit of thrift amongst them, and this is the secret of the whole thing. If they had not had this inducement offered them they would have spent the money, and they would have nothing to-day,

Now the lesson which we think this teaches is that it is desirable for many reasons to give facilities to working men to make homes for themselves, and that the present Government in abolishing village settlement extension have done the most impolitic and the worst thing that could have been done. Nothing coujd be more mischievous, and the day will come when it will be recognised.