MR W.M. GREEN M.H.R., ON THE PREVENTION OF PAUPERISM.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3659, 6 April 1883, Page 3

MR W.M. GREEN M.H.R., ON THE PREVENTION OF PAUPERISM.

Dunedin, This day. JL- AY. M. Green addressed a largely attended meeting last night in the Princess Theatre. He devoted the first hour and a quarter to criticising Major Atkinson s scheme for the prevention of pauperism. Then he explained his. own scheme. It is of a triple character. First, hoAVould regulate the drink traffic by allowing one publichouse to every 1500 inhabitants, and he propounded a plan for the local bodies taking over the present licenses by means of loans from the Government, and placing salaried officers in the public-houses. The second portion he devoted to the encouragement of local manufactures such as locomotives, Sec, by the Government in order to and employment for skilled artisans. In the third he deals with the land problem. He Avould have the Government resume possession of all lands alongside railways : divide them into blocks of 10.000 acres each : lay these out each in toAvnships and allotments of from 50 acres, leasing these allotments on the perpetual principle to the poorer classes at a lower rental, lie Avould also have the Government, if necessary, to build small houses for the occupiers of the allotments, giving them time to pay and charging them 5 per cent, for the money thus advanced. And so, lie said, would New Zealand become the Britain of the South. Mr Green avus received Avith loud applause.