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Observer, Volume 2, Issue 36, 21 May 1881, Page 388

As to settlement on the Crown lands, the only real attempt to make the path more easy to men of small means is in the system of deferred payments. This is useless unless the land be of good quality, and opened up by roads or other means of access to a market, or be in a neighbourhood where the settlers can find occasional employment in mining or otherwise. These conditions are often neglected, and the land opened for settlement is not occupied. It is a difficulty which no legislation can overcome. It rests entirely with the administrators, who are parti)' the Waste Lands Boards and partly the Government of the day. Unless these have their heart in the work it will not be done, and no legislation can make them do it. The best of the Crown land in all parts of the Colony has also been purchased and is in private hands, or it has been turned over to private speculators under the system of special settlements against which we have more than once expressed a strong opinion. To secure successful settlement under the deferred payment system, we must have a large quantity of suitable land opened in different parts of the Colony, and an administration that will have its heart set on carrying out the law in a liberal spirit. AYe have not, at present, either of these conditions, and without them there is little hope of successful settlement on a large scale. The spirit in which Waste Lands Boards deal with special settlements, and deferred payment or homestead settlers — the great consideration shown in the one case and the rigid application of law in others— are matters of common notoriety and of common complaint all over the Colony.