THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7982, 9 March 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1906.

There is one feature m the efforts now being made to attract settlers to the Commonwealth, to which special reference may be made. At t he present moment Queensland is displying more activity in this direction than any other State in Australia. She is not only seeking immigrants from the Old ,Couqtry, but she is endeavouring, with considerable success, to draw more experienced settlers from her in the Commonwealth. As a Sydney paper puts it, she is practically making a raid on the Southern States. Queensland representatives have been appointed to Viatoria and New South Wales, and an area of oouqtry for settlement has been placed at the disposal of each of them for the benefit of new settlers. The group system of settlement en-

ables immigrants from other States to form Victorian or Nevr South Wales communities, and this is said to have been a potent factor in iuduoing them to go to Queensland. Une gathers that in some quarters this reservation of choice lands for outsiders has been resented by Queenslanders, and for this reason the group system is not applied indiscriminately, some areas, being open to general compc< tirion. The great advantage that the arrival of southern settlers offers to Queensland is that they are an educational force;: as the Minister .of Lands' said recently, they bring new ideas and introduce new methods. On- the other hand, he recognises that the system has the great disadvantage so far as the Commonwealth is concerned, that it does not increase, e'xoept perhaps to a small degree, the rumber of settlers, in the' country. "Its very like taking money out of one pocket ana puttiug it into the other." This is why Mr Bell is making strong efforts fro secure immigrants from Great) Britain, and is placing facilities at the disposal of possible settlers. They can, for instance, select the'r land at the Agent -General's office in Loudon, and every man who pays his passage out has £l7 credited to him for every adult in his family towards the rent or purchase money of his selection. But the greatest' inducement lies in , the terms offered by the Government to an immigrant, whether British or Australian, who takes up an agricultural farm. If be pays the whole of the purchase money the Government pays him 3 per cent, on the sum for five years, so long as he fulfils the Ordinary settlement conditions, and if at the end of five y«ars he is not satisfied with his land or his prospects, the Government will take over his selection as it stands and refund the purchase money less 2% per cent. This remarkaole generosity is due, it appears, to the desire of the uovernment to assuage the fearsof British settlers lest they should lose their money. The maximum aiea of an agricultural farm selection, it may be addorl, is 1,280' acres, and the miuimmu price is ten shillings per acre, payment being spread over twenty years, without interest. Is it any wonder that settlers are beginning to flow into Queensland, or that the energetic policy of its Minister for Lands, himself the son of a large landholder, is attracting the attention of the other States?