MASTERTON SMALL FARM ASSOCIATION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XI, Issue 2865, 28 February 1877, Page 2

MASTERTON SMALL FARM ASSOCIATION.

The following petition from the Masterton Small Farm Association has been presented to the Waste L%uds Board : — v To the Chairman and Members of the Waste Lands Board, Wellington, the memorial of tho undersigned, members of the Masterton. Small Farms Association, 1876, showeth :

(< That your memorialists, recognising the urgent demand which exists in this district for the acquisition of land for agricultural settlement, upon such terms and conditions as would bring it within the means and circumstance* of the laboring classes, have formed themselves into an association under the above designation.

" That your memorialists are anxious to obtain such land upon the following conditions, which, after mature consideration, they believe would bring it within the means of that important section of the community on behalf of whom the efforts of the society have been mainly enlisted :—: — " 1. On deferred payments, extending

over a period of ten years. "2. That such land be intersected with bloiks set apart for sale for cash payment in the proportion of one cash -payment block between each and every of the two blocks so set apart. In making this suggestion your memorialists are strongly ■ impressed with the opinion that the acquit ed value of these cash-payment sections would be sufficient to recoup your Government for the concessions sought on behalf of the deferred pay. ment settler. i • " 3. That the price payable for such deferred payment sections be fixed at a upiforrn rate of not more than twenty shillings per acre, payable as reforred to above ; said payments to be made by equal half-yearly instalments in advance. "4. That a reserve tor a township, as also for a cemetery, for recreation, education, church, and other pant poses, be made and provided for in the land so to be set apart. "5. That it be a condition of settle, ment that each of the deferred' payment settlers improve the land so acquired by him, by clearing and cropping the same at a uniform rate of 5 per centum per annum of the land su acquired, during each, and every year of the aforesaid term of ten years, residence on the same being optional. In making this last-named request your memorialists would beg to direct your Boaid's attention to the fact that the land in question being bush land, personal residence would in the first instance be highly inconvenient and otherwise anfca£on» istic to the interests of bona Jide settlers. " 6. By and in virtue of the provisions of Clause 18 of the Wellington Special Settlements Act, and tho Waste Lands Administration Act, 1876, your Board is empowered to set aside land for special settlement purposes on such terms as may bo sanctioned by the Governor in Council, anything in the existing regulations for the management and disposal of , the waste lands in this province to the contrary notwithstanding. "Your memorialists, as representing the association aforesaid, would therefore request that your Board would be pleased to set apart that block of land known as the Makakaha Block, form, ing part of the Forty. Mile Bush,, and situated conterminous to the main ' road leading from Master ton to Wbodrille, consisting of not less than 15,000 acres. And further, they would request !that the land so set apart may be thrown open for settlement on the terms and subject to the conditions and stipulation! get forth above." ' ' '

" Your' memorialists would resbeefcfully draw attention to the fact that the subject matter of the memorial has already been brought under the 1 notice of the late Provincial Government in a memorial signed by bonafide -'members of tbis. association, antf <, forwarded to