PRETENCE !

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 13, 26 December 1890, Page 17

PRETENCE !

OME years, a good many years, ago, we beard a leading politician say in the Otago Provincial Council, when twitted about the obstacles thrown by him and his party in the way of the rapid settlement of the land, that (hey wanted the land for their own children. Ihese words sank deep into our memory, and suggested to us the propriety of paying particular attention to the policy of various Governments ever since in reference to settlement The result of our observations is, as we have from time to time said in this paper, that so far as we could see, no Government has been really in earnest on this question, and that all Governments have taken elaborate pains to devise means how not to do it. And this is the reason that so little settlement, comparatively, has taken place. Last week we had an illustration of this how-not-to-do-it policy, and a strong case in point. Nineteen sections were put up for sale in the Land Office, Dunedin, and for these nineteen sections there were 260 applicants. And this striking illustration of the how-not-to-do-it policy comes immediately after the many speeches of members of Government, and their supporters maintaining that Government deserved the greatest credit for the zeal and success with which settlement was being carried on by the present Government. Certainly there is not much zeal and success in providing nineteen sections for 260 applicants desirous of settling on the land. No doubt ie will be said, as it has often been svid before, that many applicants are not bonafide and are only applicants in order to serve a fiiend. We readily admit there is some truth m this ; but at the same time, all due allowance being made, there can be no doubt that large numbers of bona fide applicants are unable to obtain land to settle upon, and that the blame of this rests entirely with the administration. Government, we maintain, is not in earnest. Government, no matter what its professions, does not wish settlement of the land to proceed rapidly. The sheep interest and the large holdings interest are too strong in their influence with our rulers and legislators, and too much opposed to small farms on any large scale, 'lhe fact that settlement has in the past proceeded so slowly, and that men desirous of settling on the land cannot get land to settle on, prove this to demonstration. It is in vain for Ministers to protest their earnestness, and for their supporters to laud their exertions. Nothing can remove the impression or weaken the conviction' produced by the fact that 2GO applicants, going into the Land Court oi Otago in one week, find provided for them just nineteen sections. The public will remain thoroughly convinced that neither the Government nor their party really wish for .such settlement of the laud a* the exigencies of individual and the first and best interests of the country demand .