CHEVIOT-POMAHAKAWOBURN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5714, 6 November 1896, Page 6 (Supplement)

CHEVIOT-POMAHAKA-WOBURN.

We have it from Ministerial lips (says the Temxika Leader) that there was not a single penny due in arrears of rent by the tenants on the Cheviot Estate last month. Every tenant on the estate had paid up the last farthing of rent due, with the result that the Government is now making a profit of .£4OOO a year put of Cheviot. The Pomahaka is also paying its way, and will yet be a success. The Pomahaka was undoubtedly the- worst bargain of the whole of the purchases of the Government, but it will eventually turn out right, and prove beneficial to the colony and the tenants. What have our Conservative friends to say to this ? If the present Government had not been in office these lanfls would not have been settled, and the thousands who are now making a living on them would still be amongst the ranks of the unemployed.

The Southern Standard says: — It is certainly refreshing to hear the views of a practical man on the much-vexed Ponialiaka Estate question. Mr John Edie, who is standing for Clutha, has had to do with land all his life, so to speak, and his opinion in this respect is worth something. At Waikaka Valley, on Wednesday evening, he said that the only mistake made by the Government had been in making roads through the property and charging the cost on the land. The property had been paying rates many years, and the County Council should have been requested to make the roads from rates received ; and the land, added Mr Edie, would not be too dear if the 10s or 15s per acre for roading had not been added to its cost. He was firmly convinced that if it had not been for certain published statements, every section on the estate would have been taken up. We may add that Mr Edie's opinions coincide with those of other practical men. A farmer who lived for twenty years in the Waikaka Valley, and who is now living at Kaihiku (which adjoins Pomahaka),in conversation with another person the other day, said that he was much impressed with the quality of the land at Pomahaka. He said that were ho selling out his present farm and purchasing elsewhere, he would endeavour to obtain a Pomahaka section. He had found that some of the land would grow wheat (which fact alone testifies to the good quality of the soil) turnips and oats, and was very good pasture country.

The Wanganui Herald, after recounting Liberal achievements in land settlement, remarks : — " The largest estate taken under the Land for Settlements Act is now about to be acquired. It is that belonging to Mr Purvcs Eussell, of Hawke's Bay, and contains some 27,000 acres. This, when subdivided into moderate-sized holdings, will provide 1 some three hundred families with homesteads and support fully as many more, which means that where now a couple of dozen people aro located fully one thousand human beings will within a few years bo comfortably settled. It is the beginning of a new era, in Hawke's Bay, where the reign of the wool kings has hitherto retarded settlement and progress."