CORRESPONDENCE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5100, 26 September 1903, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

GREENFIELD ESTATE. [To the Editor.]

Sib, — Many people in the distriot are glad that you published the remarks that passed in the House of Representatives between the Premier and Mr Bennet. Oar member, I must Bay, pressed the matter thoroughly home and he Bhowed that he is in downright earnest in his efforts to obtain land for settlement in his district. Unfortunately he did not succeed, but he had the satisfaction of cornering the Premier and compelled him fo show his hand. I never read such rubbish as the Premier's- reply. It can deceive nobody, though I admit nobody can quite understand what he meant. Bat I suppose he did not intend that anybody should anderstand him. Just listen to this specimen sentence whioh 1 take from his reply : "If the Government took the land oompnlsorily, they took half the land only, and for the rest they had to pay practically more than its value ; and it was owing to those oireumstanoes the district had tosqw (or. deaiting that the Go« TOi&m«at should acqmw some of the estates there." Now, Sir, I defy any man living to tell me what that, sentence' means. The latter part of it, you will observe, is simply twaddle, and conveys no meaning whatever. Let any of your readers try their hand at it and see what they can make out of it.

Bat, Sir, what I want to know is when are we to be provided with land for settlement in this district?. Is the Premier's reply to. Mr Benaet final? Are the occupiers of Greenfield estate to bluff the Land for Settlement Aat and laagh at the people for all time ? Is this estate to remain looked tip for ever ? I am told there' are 13 people prepared to olaim 1,000 acres each if the owners are brought into the Land Courts. Good. Onoe again it is the squatter against the people and the eqaatter, as nsnal, wins every time. The f aat is Greenfield has always won, always got the best of (he people ; and now Greenfield eottfaitg Angers at the .Lands foe Settlement Aot, which took the concentrated wisdom of the House of Representatives of New Zealand to put it together. I honor Greenfield but I hold the Government and Parliament of New Zealand in contempt. I have no doubt we would all be prepared to bring in our cousins and our uncles and our aunts and try and head off the Government. It is human nature to do so. But it is human nature also for the man who wants to make a home for himself to demand that he Bhonld be able to get a Qougta ot handled acres ot land to rottfe on. Bvrt this is impossible if the , human nataie of the man who owns thousands of acres is allowed to have its way. This is just what has happened in the oase of Greenfield, and I suppose as, lpng ,ac a. bakers dozen of claimants for a thousand acres each can be brought together no one will have a ohanoe of getting a bit of land in this district. \ I oan only say, Bir, in conclusion that the so-oalled compulsory provisions of the Land Aot Me a sham, and a Government that cannot make a law to defeat such " claims": as ' those I have mentioned ft &liq a. ebam, lam sarpiieed to*t wa able man like the Premier Bhonld make suoh a humiliating confession as he did to Mr Bennet, being bluffed by the squatters.— l am, Ac., S^all Fabmeb. 25th September, 1908.