THE SETTLEMENT OF THE LAND.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2745, 15 February 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE LAND.

Mh David Christie Murhav, on being interviewed at the Grand Hotel, Uunedin, by the special reporter of the Otago Daily Times, appoars to be very favourable to special settlements. "The conversation drifted," the reporter says, " into the channel of population and colonisation, and Mr Murray was not surprised to hear that the evil of concentration of population in the centros is prevalent here as if is in many other countries." "My belief;" he observed, "is that the matter is one that ought to be taken in hand by the State and by the colonial authorities with the State. I laid a schema before Australia which I published in the Melbourne Age, the Sydney Telegraph, and the Adelaide Advertiser.: I submitted it to several leading men io. Sydney and Melbourne before publishing ir, and it met with their approval, but it did not meet with the popular sympathy. The people of Australia appear to be very much afraid of competition, and they don't want new people. If a committee were appointed to sit in London—a oolonial com-, mittee—to see to it that, none but the most eligible people—the fittest and best trained —were sent out, if they had a right to put a veto on the applications of any persons who came before, them; if, then, the imperial Government were willing to spend, Bay, a million per annum, which theymight very well do: if sites were chosen and towns laid out and work prepared, and if labour were drafted out very carefully, exactly as it was required for the progress of the work ; if, then, the kind of i men calculated to form a growing township were chosen, tradesmen, artisans, agriculturists, horticulturists —and if they were brought out precisely as things were favourably developed, then you mieht eet what the country is crying out for without any fear of concentration. lam going to take the matter up when I get homo again. Of course, it will require a great deal oi pusjhr ing, and will ineet wjth a, areafc deal of opposition. When I say this it is most essential to understand that anyone coming out here by State-aided emigration, who reduces the store of any old settler by ns much as a erain of corn a day, is doing an injury to the body politic, and any illegible person coming out here is "dumped" down on your shores to our advantage, and yaur disadvantage, and yoq don't waut such, and you must not have them. But I think that the appointment of a Colonial Committee to investigate the claims of every intending immigrant would put all danger of that on one side. There is labour enough in England—honest, capable labour waiting for a chance, and thoro \s capjtal in England waiting for opportunities to enrich,' almost immeasurably, the Australian Colonies and New Zealand.. It would bo absurd f«r me to talk aboiit'New Zealand, having only landed at Dunedin this morning but in Australia the land is simply crying out for labour. J will not be able to have more than two months, at the outside, but in that time I will try to see a good deal."