THE WAIRARAPA STANDARD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1877.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume 7, Issue 614, 9 October 1877, Page 2

THE WAIRARAPA STANDARD TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1877.

In our last we were enabled to announce, on the authority of our well-in-formed Wellington correspondent, that a change of Ministry at an early date, was inevitable. We cannot say that such an announcement either pleased or surprised us. Though we have never adopted as our motto, “ Measures, not men,” as we believe that men are sometimes of more importance than measures. We cannot see how, under present circumstances, a change of men without a change of measures is to operate to the advantage of the country. Some of the measures introduced by tiie present Ministry are more liberal than any likely to be introduced by their successors, and we include amongst these the Education, the Waste Lands, and the Settlements Works Advances Bill. The principle of the latter measure has our warm approval, and as all its objectionable features could be easily modified or excised during its passage through Committee, we hope no change of Ministry will prevent it becoming law. Yet this is one of the Bills that has been most violently opposed by the members of the House who are opposed to the present Ministry. Nor can we close our eyes to the fact that on the question of fiee and secular education our views are more in accordance with those held by the Ministerialists than they are with those held by some of the more prominent members of the Opposition. The same may also be said with reference to the Land Bill now before the House. Its provisions are much more liberal than many of the opponents of the Ministry would be in favor of. There is one provision in that Bill which will not meet the approval of the Southern Squatocracy ; that provision we mean which extends the deferred payment principle, under judicious regulations and resolutions, to pastoral lands. When introducing the Bill Mr Reid said, “ With such a provision we shall be able to select suitable blocks of pastoral lands in any district, and to survey it into allotments of from 1000 to 5000 acres, and snch allotments may be so arranged as to contain from 50 to 200 acres of agricultural or improvable' land. By laying off these pastoral lands, in this way, with a limited area of irp-* provable land in each allotment attached to a large area of purely pastoral land, we shall provide the means whereby it could be most profitably occupied, namely, as mixed agricultural and pastoral farms; we shall thus secure a far better class of settlers, the yeomanry class, the country will be better occupied, and we shall have obtained a better price for the land than if it remained in the hands of the large holders, i would ask all those who may be disposed to look with disfavor on this provision that they would consider the matter seriously before they attempt to get it exercised from the bill, for it will be most advantageous in enabling profitable occupation of those parts of the country where ihe land is generally rugged and only pastoral, but still has some portions fit for agricultural purposes.” Under some such provision as this, and that embodied in the Advances Bill, how much more rapid would have been the settlement and progress of this province than has been the case under out Waste Land Regulations ? For the first time there has been shown an honest intention on the part of the Government to secure the settlement rather than the sale of the public lands. And though it is true we have no faith in the financial or administrative policy of the Ministry, are at the same time totally opposed to their centralizing tendencies ; still before we can congratulate the country on a change of Ministry wc require to know whether in these respects the new Ministry will be any improvement on their predecessors