The Waipawa Mail Published Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Saturdays. Saturday, January 15, 1887.

Waipawa Mail, Volume X, Issue 1034, 15 January 1887, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail Published Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Saturdays. Saturday, January 15, 1887.

The very urgent and vital necessity which exists for the colony of New Zealand to be more thickly settled by a hard-working and thriving population of settlers, has been pointed out often enough. No sooner does a new arrival set his foot on our shores than he commences to bear his share of the general burdens to which the community is yoked. Consequently, the greater the numbers, the less the proportion which each has to bear. All this has been so repeatedly thrust under the noses of the public that it almost requires an apology from a newspaper for opening up the subject once more. But the misfortune is that no executive has yet been found which is prepared to give effect to the process above referred to, viz, oi settling the country. Under these circumstances, it is surely the duty of the press to keep hammering away until something is done. The question of settling lands is intimately connected with the Native question, and this fact gives the Native question a special importance. It transforms it from a mere isolated political controversy to a question of national weight. It makes of the Native question a foundation, upon which the whole structure of our future prosperity must necessarily be built. If the foundation is well prepared, well and good. If not, woe betide the unhappy colonials who have cast their lot in this part of the world ; their future prospects are dreary indeed.

No one can deny that the work of settlement is at the present time going on very slowly indeed. Sales of Government land arc things of the past, rather than of the present, and to all intents and purposes, the country population of New Zealand is not growing in the least. This would be a most serious charge to make at any time, even if the colony were enjoying the brightest prosperity ; but considering its present condition of depression and stagnation, its present want of settlers, its sparsity of population, its immense tracts of waste lands, the charge becomes doubly intense.

The New Zealand Herald of a recent date has an article on this subject, in which it maintains that the remedy for all the present difficulties and depression is perfectly simple. It is stated in three words ; extension of settlement. “ The waste lands of the North Island,” says our contemporary,” afford scope for the Government for many years to come. There may be a continued stream of immigrants turning the wilderness into profitable cultivations, lightening the debt of the country, and by their produce and labor, affording scope for manufactures which cannot at present be thought of.” This is true. There are hundreds and thousands of acres of land, open and bush, which might be thrown open for settlement in the North Island, and yet nothing is done. And whilst the Government is continuing this do-nothing policy, a worse influence is at work. The land which the state ought to he acquiring for purposes of settlement, is instead being taken up by private individuals. Settlement is actually being retarded instead of being increased. It is said that Mr Ballance has been preparing stringent measures for a future policy in regard to the land question which will be decided in their nature. Let us hope this is the case. The Government has been blamed often enough for being radical in its politics, for espousing doctrines which are too advanced for adoption at the present time. But they have not yet forced them upon the country, or even given the people a fair chance of judging of their nature and whether they would be desirable reforms or not. This pol icy will not establish for the Stout-Vogel Ministry a repujtatjop either for sincerity or for exo.

cutive ability. Let us hope the session which is now shortly to open will be distinguished for an avowal of that vigor without which no Government or Parliament can possibly hope to achieve any success whatever.

It is bad enough to be too radical, perhaps, in one’s policy. But it is still worse to be absolutely inactive when in power. For our part, we are more inclined to pick the Government to bits for not being radical enough than for being too much so. We do not consider they deserve the name of radical at all, and we refuse to allow it them. And if they desire to win the confidence of the country and be credited with good intentions, they must turn their attention to this very important question, the settlement of the land and that at once. The condition of the country, and the present and future interests of the settlers, imperatively demands that this be done.