SMALL FARM ASSOCIATIONS AND THE RESIDENTIAL CLAUSE.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 114, 12 March 1885, Page 2

SMALL FARM ASSOCIATIONS AND THE RESIDENTIAL CLAUSE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB. Sir, — The residential clause (rule 10) says: "The purchaser shall be entitled to a Grown grant of the land selected by him, upon proof to the satisfaction of the Minister that he has been continuously in residential occupation of the land selected by him either personally or by registered substitute for the period of six years, and has fulfilled all the conditions." It is important to many of your readers, both enrolled and intending members x>f present and future associations, ta have the interpretation of above clause made perfectly clear. According to clause 7, the full payment of the land is to be completed in ten years. But Nothing is mentioned about when the residential clause shall commence its operation during these ten years. Is it meant that the purchaser must go on the land at once (on allocation), or is he allowed to wait four years before he resides, " either personally or by substitute?" The above rule says, " continuously in residential occupation ;" but do you not think the rule ought to be altered so that he could fulfil its conditions by occupation only from time to time as long as he aggregated the required six years within the ten, and also that the time used by contractors who made improvements for owner should be considered " residence" by owner, as long as he registered the contractors as substitutes from time to time ? It may be important to the Government to get large tracts of land brought rapidly under productive cultivation by progressive bonafide settlers, but it is far more important that these settlers should have all facilities to enable them to effect the necessary preliminary improvements (before going on the land) within their means and without interfering too suddenly with their present social position or livelihood. For there are very few of us who can, on allocation, throw up present employment, • provide for family, and spend our time and labor on the land at once. On the ether hand, there are many who would join the movement and be able to carry out all conditions if the residential clause was made as liberal as indicated, thus being able still for some time to pursue present callings, from which sure and steady incomes are derived, and invest the savings in improvements on the land till such time as they could take their families there and exist. The above matters are questions worthy of consideration and ought to be fully discussed at a general meeting of the members of the local association, who also should secure the success of any resolution passed by acquiring the co-operation of other associations, so that sufficient pressure may be brought to bear on " the powers that be." It would not be amiss if another rule was proposed at the same time, viz., " That the satisfactory proof of residence, upon which the Minister issues a crown grant, should be a declaration on oath, before a Justice of the Peace, and attested by two independant witnesses, to the effect that the residential clause had been complied with ; said declaration to be forwarded through the secretary of the association." In conclusion, I may state that I am expressing the wish of many in asking the proprietors of the Star to imitate the example given by a contemporary by copying the rules and regulations of Small Farm Associations as published in the New Zealand Gazette of 4th December, 1884. — I am, &c, Observer.