LAND SETTLEMENT

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2300, 6 November 1914, Page 6

LAND SETTLEMENT

MR. R. A. ■WRIGHT'S 'OUTSPOKEN' • CRITICISM, Addressing the electors at Wyatt'ft Hall, Worser Buy, last evening, Mr., R. A. Wright, Reform candidate for the Suburbs, dealt trenchantly with Sir,. Joseph. Ward's statement with regard / to land settlement. Sir Joseph Ward once again posed as tho champion of ■ closer settlement, but, said Mr.i Wright, facts 'spoke louder than words, louder than tho promise-cram-, med programme of the right honour-, able baronet. At the time when Sir , Joseph Ward succeeded Mr. Seddon as Premier, there were 415 estates in. New Zealand of between 5000 and 10,000 acres: tho year following they increas-. Ed to 436, then to 458, and in 1911 to 526. And yet Sir Joseph Ward was ■perpotually claiming that his party alone had tackled the question of exploding tho big estates. So , also with; estates from 10,000 to 20,000 acres.. They would, therefore, kco that it was 1 essential when Sir Joseph Ward indulged in a series of fantastic narratives and made his familiar incursionsinto the realms of the imagination that, ho should bo .confronted with the inexorable logic of facts, and be taught, to understand that the public were beginning to get heartily sick of his fretful, oracular explosions. It. was mani-. fest that ,on the land question, as on so many other questions, tho Opposition had no settled policy They were a combination of geniuses, distinguished for the discordancy of their opinions. Continuing, Mr. Wright • pointed out that during tho last two years and a quarter 2316 rural freeholds, privately owned, had been subdivided into 6196 subdivisions, the total area being 1,125,678 acres. In addition 710,633 acres of ordinary Crown lands, were opened for selection during the' same period, and ton estates have leen ao- [ quired, under the Lands for Settlement Act, siuco March 31, 1914, aggregating 23,652 acres. These facts wero overwhelming proofs of the progressive spirit of' the Government. Whatever promises Sir Joseph Ward migtli make, whatever extravagant proposals ho might advance, ho was confronted with tho fact that as a. politician, unliko Mr. Seddon, he lacked tho capacity for practical constructive statesmanship,' It was admitted by some of his candid friends that he was unfortunate as a leader, and had time and again compromised the fortunes .of his party .by his irrational political conduct. Under such circumstances, he (the speaker) felt he could predict the country would never again place its fortunes in'the hands of the right honourable barouct,