SETTLEMENT OF THE PEOPLE ON THE LANDS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 844, 21 June 1878, Page 3

SETTLEMENT OF THE PEOPLE ON THE LANDS.

(Communicated.) A public meeting (adjourned from the Ist inst) for the purpose of considering the advisability of having land in tho district, available for settlement, thrown open for selection was held in the Town Hall, Alexandra Monday last tho I7th inst., at 8 p.m.

As evidencing the greet interest taken in the question under consideration a very largo assemblage was present, and of whom Mr J. 0. Chappie, was voted to the chair. The Chairman, in opening the meeting, explained that at the first meeting hold on the Ist inst., to consider the question, a Sub • Committee, consisting of Messrs. Theyers and Noble was appointed to examine the surrounding country, and to report at the present meeting the result of what they had seen. The present meeting, therefore, was to hear the result of the Subcommittee’s labor, he would, therefore, call upon them for their report. The following report was then read : Gentlemen, —In compliance with a resolution passed at a public meeting held in the Town Hall, Alexandra, on the Ist day of June, IS7S, on the land question, to the effect that we should visit the country in and around Alexandra in search of land fit for agricultural purposes, and report to an adjourned meeting to ho held in the Town Hall, Alexandra, 17th June, IS7S. We have, therefore, the honor to report that we have visited that portion of the Calloway Run known as Shanty Creek, on the old Teviot Hoad via the Knobby Range, but found no land in or about this spot of any extent fit for agricultural purposes. On this day wo visited Run No, 221, known as Moot ere. We proceeded from Alexandra, through the Wia Keri Keri Valley, and from the head waters of this valley to Yankee Flat wo found the land to bo first-class agricultural, composed of low undulating spurs, and iu every gully between these spurs are streams of water, which are tributaries of the Young Hill and Chattn Creeks. The soil Is black and loomy, and fully eighttenths of it can he turned 'with the plough ; in fact, the whole of the land immediately under the Hunstan Range, as far as wo travelled, is first-class agricultural land, and we would recommend that steps he at once taken to have at least 10,000 acres of his country thrown open for settlement, under the agricultural lease system, feeling assured it would be occupied by an indus-