The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1897.

Timaru Herald, Volume LX, Issue 2357, 31 March 1897, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31, 1897.

It would be unjust and foolish to deny that the present Minister of Lands is sincerely desirous of carrying out as large a measure of settlement as is possible. We have heard it alleged that he is far more intent on waging war against the large land-owners than on doing the best for all the small men who would like to establish themselves on much more modest holdings. He certainly has a craze for harassing the former class, and there is therefore no love lost between them and him, but we give him credit for wishing to benefit the latter. It is clearly to his own interest to promote settlement on moderate sized and small blocks, and as he is an active energetic man we are willing to believe that he has done his best. He and his colleagues have always claimed that that best is very good indeed. They, m fact, would have the public believe that Mr McKenzie's land legislation and Mr McKenzie's land administration are infinitely superior to anything which the colony previously enjoyed m connection with efforts to effect settlement. We fail to recognise the validity of those claims. Mr Rolleston and Mr Richardson were each quite as sincerely anxious to promote bond fide settlement as Mr McKenzie is; the land legislation of each was quite as liberal as anything which Mr McKenzie has attempted m the same direction ; and their administration placed on the land more settlers of the right sort than have been attracted by all the pretentious systems which have sprung into existence since the last Atkinson Ministry went out of office. Mr McKenzie has made a grand show of settlement on paper, but it is now notorious that the tabulated statements must be heavily discounted before the actual results are arrived at. Last week Mr John Duthie one, of the Wellington members m the last Parment, was m Wanganui and delivered an excellent political address, at the request of many of the residents of that town. Amongst other subjects which he dealt with was land settlement, and he showed how utterly false were Mr McKenzie's claims to be considered an able land legislator and administrator. Mr Duthie reminded his hearers that Mr Seddon, since his return from Australia, had Btated on the public platform that there was not one Act that had been passed by the present Government, which the Opposition would be prepared to repeal if they came into office. Mr Duthie could not endorse that statement, and he instanced the land laws as a branch of legislation which would require material alteration. He said : — " He was not one who fostered the aggregation of large estates, but he recognised that New Zealand was a mountainous, and an essentially pastoral country, and that there were many parts where the land could not be used for other than grazing purposes, and that, m such localities, the holders must have a sufficient area to allow of the wintering of stock, etc. To give full effect to the Hon. Mr McKenzie's land settlement ideas, a clean sweep had been made of the existing Land Acts, with the result that the colony now enjoyed unadulterated ' Liberal 1 Land Laws. Under them 83,615 acres m the Wellington Provincial District had been surrendered or forfeited last year, involving the ruin of hundreds of men who had been induced to to take up or go on land without experience and sufficient means." Mr John Duthie is a very straightforward truthful man — one who is not (like the Premier) accustomed to draw upon his imagination foi his facts. We should therefore have placed faith m his statements if his information had been derived from private sources and from his own observation. But he fortified himself with the contents of official documents whioh have been pub' lished, and are open to anyone whe

cares to study them, and glean from them the interesting lessons which they teach. He said : — " The Commisßionerof Crown Lands complains that there are now sixteen different tenures, necessitating an army of inspectors and rangers. He had 622 different rangers' reports to consider, and the correspondence of his office amounted to 42,500 letters for the year, or 142 a day received and replied to. The Surveyor-General states that, excluding town and pastoral lands, the average area of sections m 1895 was 161 acres, and m 1896, 162 acres, which, considering its roughness and inaccessibility, the Commissioner considers altogether insufficient, and further, he deplores that the sons of settlers, men with experience and some capital, cannot obtain land." And then he proceeded as follows : — " What could a man do on 162 acres of land only fit for grazing sheep ? What could he make out of 240 sheep ? What kind of a lite did this mean, aud how could a man be expected to keep a wife and family decently? Did the Minister for Lands wish to reduce the people of this colony to the lower life of the Irish peasant ? If so, God be thanked that 83,615 acres had been thrown up by people who had more sense than to go on with it. Such facts, as these, he considered, proved the utter failure of. the McKenzie land administration. Indeed, the whole system of laws introduced by the Government was bad, and ought to be swept away." The above quoted remarks referred more particularly to the North Island, but similar evils are showing themselves m this Island, and we greatly fear that m a few years more much of the land which has been allotted to small settlers under the McKenzie systems will be thrown on to the hands of the Government, the holders finding that they have made exceedingly bad bargains, and that it will be wiser to abandon a struggle m which they are certain to be worsted. In some instances the land is of inferior quality, m others the areas are too small, and m regard to all there is the drawback that the small settler is not a free agent, but is continually harassed and annoyed by the " army of inspectors and rangers ' mentioned by Mr Duthie.