The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1912. THE MEMBER FOR WAIKATO.

Waipa Post, Volume III, Issue 101, 12 April 1912, Page 2

The Waipa Post. PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1912. THE MEMBER FOR WAIKATO.

r THE recent session of Parliament ! ihas to a very large extent served ! to show the electors of all con- ' stituencies the true calibre of , each chosen representative to the i House of Parliament. Fortunately for Waikato, its member cannot be classed with those politicians who have considered an election pledge of minor importance and of not being worthy •of serious consideration when a •clearly defined issue was dependent upon their actions. We have already expressed ourselves as being opposed to any re£re--sentative who lightly pledges to the electors. It ters not whether a candidat^B

leanings tend to either side of the House.. To break faith with the electors is deserving of the utmost condemnation, and is a grievous wrong to the supporters of any party or measure, and serves only to show the lack of principle when the matter of £3OO a year is the stake. We have said that the member for Waikato has made good his promises so far, and in support of this will quote from Hansard of Feb. 29th, when Mr Young, addressing the House, spoke in much the same strain as he spoke on the platform throughout this electorate. After protesting against the manner in which the debate had been conducted, Mr Young proceeded to say . . . “It is a

great indictment of the party system; and here we find men fighting not to render service to the country, but merely to hang on to office and x'emain in power. Men on all sides of the House should be given credit for good intentions to serve the country. As men we should agree to differ although we cannot see eye to eye in regard to what should be done Now for a word or two in regard to the statement made by the member for Avon ; and in this connection he has admitted to-night that he is the proprietor of 66,000 acres in the Runanga district. It is not to the discredit of Mr Russell that he has taken up 66,000 acres of land capable of treatment, and to be made of use and value to this country. Mr Russell has done no more than Mr Buchanan and others have done who have taken up land and demonstrated what it is capable of producing. The man who .takes up land—l care not whether it is a large or a small section —and brings it from wildness into a state of productivity should receive credit for so doing. Those who have so taken up the land of the country are the pioneers. I say, all honour to the men who have taken up the land in the past, and for the work they have so done for the country. The time, however, has now arrived when the large landowner shall pass away, and make room for men who require small holdings and will go in for a system of intense agriculture. It is not the man who merely owns the land who is the benefactor,, but the man who works it. In the North there are Native lands and Crown lands lying idle to-day and producing nothing, but growing noxious weeds apd carrying rabbits. In my district there are thousands of acres of Native land in such a state, which is a great menace to the successful farmer. The great work to do is to tackle this land question, and with all earnestness. There are men on this side of the house who are called “shell-backs,” but, from my observation, I see they are earnest men, honestly desirous of building up this country. They desire to help the man 'who is

willing to do something for himself, and is not afraid of work in the country. Such men should be commended.' Then, the pioneer has been referred to —he who is doing a great work in the back country. That man should receive the greatest encouragement it is possible to bestow, because every acre of new land brought into profitable use is a source of profit to the towns —it gives security of employment to the worker in the city. This land-settlement question is a workers’ question. It concerns the carpenter, blacksmith, and every one engaged in the great industrial occupations, even the girls in the shops, and the young women in dressmaking and millinery establishments. If our lands are settled there is a growing and secure market for the product of their enterprise, whereby they can feel secure in their occupations, while at the same time adding to the general needs and comfort of the whole community. The great work in this country which must be tackled is to open up the waste lands for settlement, and in order to achieve this the people who are doing the pioneering must be given the greatest encouragement and facility to work their lands.

Those men and women who take up bush and swamp land, and who are doing their best to improve it, working from ten to sixteen hours a day, and who after from five to ten years’ toil succeed in bringing that land into a highly productive state, should, if thev desire to own the land, have the right to acquire the freehold. What do we find ? Who are the opponents of the present Government, which is about to go out of office ? Well, I will take four electorates in the south of the Auckland provincial district —Tauranga, Raglan, Tauiaarunui, and Waikato. Those

electorates are.-largely made up of small settlers, and there is not one, I believe, of those four containing what one would call a very large landowner, a land shark, or a big fellow owning land and doing little or nothing with it. Those constituencies have not sent men to ‘ this House to keep in the present Government. . ... . Who are the

friends of the Government in my district ? They are not the settlers on the land, but the speculators in Native lands mostly ; and it would appear that certain speculators seemingly have a better chance of getting the Maori-land tenures than anybody else. These men get a Native lease, and what do they do with it ? Work it ? Settle on it? No. They hawk it round the country and sell the goodwill of the lease sometimes for 2s. an acre, and sometimes for £2 and even £7 an acre to the actual settler, the bona fide man who goes upon the land to make a living from it. That should be put a stop to. What chance under the present Government has the son of a. settler without influence before the Maori Land Court or the Board and get the land every time; the bona fide settler has no show. That sort of thing should be broken down, and we should have some guarantee that the men' who take up Native lands are going to work them.”