Special Settlement.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 86, 8 October 1895, Page 2

Special Settlement.

Mr Duthie has given notice to ask the Minister of Lands, referring to Plan No. ; 85, recently issued by the Commissioner of the Wellington Land District, offering for sale sixty-three sections* containing 12,127 acres of land, in the settlements of Somerville, Hunterville, Nos. 1, 2 and 8, and "Palmerston North Knights of Labour, " will he inform the House.— (l) Whether there was any special reason for so general an abandonment and for* ; ' feiture of the sections in these blocks ? (2) Whether he is aware that there is a large number (said to be sixty) of those remaining as selectors who have no in* tention of becoming bona fide settlers? (3) Whether he now recognises that then special settlements largely consist of speculators, willing to risk the small initiatory expense on the change of drawing a first-class section and then selling out, but who, if unsuccessful, abandon the land after blocking settlement for some years, as in the cases in point ? (4) Whether it is not now apparent to him that it is useless and wasteful to incur so great an expense in surveying such country into blocks of about 200 acres, with all the enormous cost for roads and bridges necessitated thereby ; and does he now recognise that close settlement of such rough country cannot be beneficially effected, and that settlers are not able to make a living on so small blocks of such land ? (5) Will he amend his land regulations to prevent the future blockings of genuine settlement by the present general "dummying" of land, as shown in the above cases, and by: the very unsatisfactory disclosures at the recent investigations held both in Pal« merston North and at Marton ?