WHARAMA.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume 3, Issue 188, 23 June 1874, Page 2

WHARAMA.

(from our own correspondent.) June 17. “ The rain, it raineth every day!” is now the burthen of our song or rather the dirge to our hopes and judging from the volume of water with which we have been flooded within the last week or two, Nature’s gauge —I know I should write '* pluviameter”—seems to register by feet instead of inches ; and as it is self indicating acd has not been patented it may be accepted as the nearest possible approximation to scientific accuracy. Our roads—l so denominate them through courtesy begin again to present their old familiar aspect, save the first instalment of the Tenui and Alfredton line which possesses all the charms of novelty and which imagination peering into dim futurity throngs with chariots and peoples with blushing beauty and its satellites. Of course the sites have to be chosen, the forest monarchs levelled, squared and quartered, and the stately edifices erected, and invested with “ a local habitation and a name,” before these things be; but we are strong in faith and when it has removed our mountains, our cities shall spring up under the benign wand of tbe-same beneficent enchantress! Prom present indications, at least, it would appear that if we are ever to rejoice in a township in this district it will be through the instrumentality of some supernatural agency or other. While everybody admits, in the abstract, that a few houses would contribute an element of stability to its prosperity, those who possess land suitable for the purpose -—and it is limited and they are few—evince no inclination to dedicate it to such a use, but prefer devoting it exclusively to the sustenance of such quadrupedal emblems of innocence as “nourish a blind; life within the brain,” and pay an annual tribute in wool. It was a grave, and it would appear, irretnidiable oversight on the part of the Government, when the land wasoriginallydisposed of notto have reserved sections here and there as building allotments. Now it becomes a question whether it would not prove both a politic and remunerative investment for sqch proprietors as are the fortu nate possessors of a considerable area of fiat land, to set .aside and offer to public competition, a fraction of it for the erection of dwelling houses. The enquiries fot cottages of late, and that within a comparatively limited area, have been sufficiently numerous to justify the speculation. The scarcity and dearness of labor has been a continual song for the last two years, still there is no inducement held out for laborers permanently to settle ii) this district in the district. Tho consequence is that a large proportion of those who periodically offer their services are of the nomadic type indigenous to these colonies, which those who from force of circumstances; employ, are the better able to appreciate. Whereas were the experiment tried to acquire a settled laboring population, it were idle to dispute the fact that tho era of their introduction would be also that of improvement for their in (reducers, and to employers generally. We have had immigrants sent up hero of whom a few still remain in the employment of Government, and their enquiries about afewacresof land on which to establish a home have been as repeated as their disappointment, on learning that none was procura ble, has been great. The Government may send up new arrivals by the shipload, but unless the barrier be removed which precludes them from providing themselves with a permanent abode, they can never become settlers, and will gravitate by the natural law of self interest to localities more congenial, where they can “ sit under the shadow of their own vine and fig tree” in obedience to the sacred instincts which the British peasant of the better class associates with the name of 1 * home.” The subject which elicited these remarks is well worthy of thA serious consideration of those whose fortunes are inseparably bound-up in the future of the Whareama -District. It only languishes fur want of a beginning, for sheepowners like the things they own, are fond of the game of “ follow your leader.”