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Wellington Independent, Volume II, Issue 60, 22 April 1846, Page 2

_ We hwe a few words for absentees. It is the object of this paper to support the interests of the settlers, and to deal plainly with every matter which appears to affect them. In doing so, we may advocate measures which appear injurious to absentees. This arises from ignorance of absentees, respecting their own property in ihis settlement. If they could see the labour necessary to reduce bush land in New Zealand into cultivation, they would respect the men who have the courage to face it. We cannot convey to them any idea of the bush" In many parts there are forty or fifty trees per acre, ranging from nine to twenty-four feet in circumference. Many of them more than one hundred feet bi-rh ; there are besides smaller trees as close as they can well stand, and all matted together by ■■a 'hick undergrowtfi Of supple-jack through which, without a bill-hook, few can pass lhey may conclude the labour of clearing even on level ground, to be considerable and may beheve the colonist who Calculates the expence at from ten to twelve pounds per acre, to be a 9 near the truth, as thecapitalist who reckons it at from six Weight pounds. They have however, seen no.hfng like the bush, and cannot estimate the endurance of those who fairly clear their land. For this land the absentees paid Beven years ago one pound per acre, L s M valae. For the same land they have asked rents averaging ten shillings per acre, per annum. Had they asked a rent or tw 0 Bhi lings and sixpence per acre per annnm on twenty-one years leases,tbey P WO uldC c obta.ned good interest for their invest mente. Many valuable colonists would Zt T a T d " thiß Betllement ' who gone elsewhere, and many or the evils which have occurred would have been lessened or prevented. The necessity f? r importing flour, which continued so lon L and so exhausted the capital of the 6et S

would have ceased years before it did., ki I land been obtainable on reasonable t-nj 11 is alleged and with some appearatu-e of P probability, that had the lands of absentees 5P iv the Hutt valley been so obiainable, tljn H natives would never have intruded .^ er || the sufferings and loss of property of' f tiers, and the murder of unoffending a J j| worthy members of our little community 1 would have been avoid d. Can absented H be surprized that their interests, are con, 'i sidered hostile to those of the eet'lers, whijg §» they entertain notions so extravagant of % the value of their lands. i|| If they require prof -that where la n( j % could be obtain d men have been found t 3 go upon it; we instance Wades' Town" % Yule's and other sections at Karori, Frank $ Johnson's and other sections on the p l)r ;, $ rua r.tatl; and wherever else the opportul 1 nity has been afforded. But ouglit they to hope that men unless from sheer necel, 8 sity, will lay out labour equal in value to If eight or ten pounds per acrii, on land -which cost one pound, and pay a rent for th { 1 privilege of ten shillings per acre per i annum. H It is said thatabsenteed 1 mopey brouwjit I the labourer here. It has not kept him here, ' And if he had not come the land would I not have been worth five shillings per acre, P The New Zealand Company had a better I notion of the importance of labour to atfd S value to their settlements!, when they gave I their provincial agents premiums lor i n . 1 ducing labourers of a proper description f to come out; and experience had evidently I not less'iied their opinion of its necessity 8 when they made such a stir about Captain I Hob.on removing to Auckland a few arli. I zans, to help to build the Government. T House. Land obtainable on terms is (be only thing necessary to maker this settlement, a good place for labourersl< jto come to. And when -that k so, as many may come as like. fcC YVe hear that several persons are pre- { paring to leave the Hutt valley, on account ii lof the injury they sustain from the floods andthjp uncei-iain periods of their recur* ; rcnce. I