The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1890.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 8834, 18 July 1890, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 18, 1890.

That the demand for land in the Taranaki district continues unabated is evident from the number of applications sent in for tne few sections balloted for on Thursday morning at the Land Board Office. There were sixty-eight applications for five sections of land, the average of each being between eight and nine hundred" acres. This shows that the Government is not putting the land into the market quick enough to meet the demands. The members are always talking about the difficulty of getting people to go on the land, but here is an instance where persons desirous of securing land are debarred from doing so owing to there being none available. The economical fit which seized the Government a few year 3 ago was the means of! reducing the survey staff in this district, where it was really required ; but it Ws- riot retrenchment after all, for the expenditure in other districts where surveyors had little or nothing to do was increased rather than diminished. The result of this has been that the Pukekino, Kaharoa, and other blocks of land at the back of the Whareroa and Mokoia native reserves are so long being brought into the market. There is another matter which our attention has been called to, with regard to the retarding of settlement in this district. To save the expense of fencing, the lessees of the native reserves we have mentioned put gates up across the roads, and thereby a stranger wishing to view the land at the back may travel all along the western boundary of the reserves without knowing how to get behind them.. What is required, we learn, is that the Government should make the Whareroa road, which goes through tha reserve of that name, for if access can be had to the back country, there is no doubt about it soon being settled. There may be some difficulty, however, as' to the ways and means to make this road ; but if there is no other way the cost should be made a lien on the land, which the road would make more valuable. The native leases of the Whareroa and Mokoia blocks, we are told, have expired, and the late lessees are trying to get them renewed, but the Native Minister, if he accedes to the application, should make a provision that the lessees pay part of the cost of making this road, as it is the only outlet Hawera has to the Crown lands at the back of the reserves. Whilst there is such a demand for land in this district, it is most reprehensible on the part of the Government not placing more men at work to- survey it so as to put the land into the market, for scarcely a day passes but persons arc leaving our snores who would have been settlers could they get land to settle on. This is very evident from the large numberMf'applicntions which were put in for the "land 1 offered for sale on Thursday. The present system of deciding the choice by lottery is most objectionable. Ballot the Government call it, but it is nothing more than the worst form bf lottery that could be devised, for it encourages dummyism. A system, therefore, which offers so large a premium for fraud and chicanery, which rigs the land by aid of Government machinery, which tends to multiply false applications and evasions of law, is very demoralising, and contrary -to the laws of the colony, which prohibit lotteries of another kind. It is, moreover, a bitter wrong to those who desire to settle on the land, and as it is an injury to the country the quicker the ballot system is abolished the better.

The absence of European telegrams from the columns ofrour paper we feel sure is much missed by our readers. Before the invention of the electric telegraph the world used to rub along somehow and got through its business without that luxury ; but as soon' as the new communication bad been fairly tested it was seen to be not a luxury, but one of the neoessaries of commercial life. Its introduction has altered the condition of trade and commerce, and the country that is outside the range of its direct influence doeß its work as compared with the rest of the world, upon a -very -much lower platform. The demand for telegraphic facilities has increased with the extension of them, - and the time is at hand when no considerable community will; remain unconnected by line or cable' with the great centres of thought, of industry, and of commerce. Once having become accustomed to the great convenience of telegraph communitation to be cut off from the outer world as we now are is very trying. It will be also a great loss to those engaged in mercantile persuits, who are thus debarred from communicating with firms at Home. There -has „ been a considerable opposition, to.*.. any. company laying a cable with Honolulu .'and San Fruncisco. The establishment of telegraphic communication between New Zealand, Fiji, the Sandwich Islands,* and San Francisco, would obviously be -of great advantage to all concerned, and wo should then never be liable to be cut off from tha Old World in the manner we now are. It is surprising that a cable in the direction of San Francisco has not been laid before this, for the time when telegraphic enterprise* was carried on with the timidity of the navigators of old has long passed. Modern science and researcli have enabled the constructors of telegraphs to acquaint themselves with the contour and character of ocean beds, and to ascertain where their cables may be laid with Bafety: and capital is alwayß available for a project that will pay. Then why are we not'eonnected with Ajierica ? There is no knowing when the Eastern Company will mend their cable ; in the meantime we havo to put up with receiv ing the news brought by steamors in an intermittent way.

The train to' meet the s.s. Takapuna, from Sonth, will leave at 8 a.m., and lo join her, going north, at 11 a.m. to-morrow (Saturday). Mr J. 0. Sinclair, photog'raper, announces that he has opened, a studio in King's Buildings, Brougham-streets There is at present a gentleman in town who is desirous of taking up bush land for settlement in this district, but so far ho has been unable to do anything in the mattoron account of tha small are* pf Crown land iQ the marmot,