The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DECEMBER 23, 1902.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 702, 23 December 1902, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, DECEMBER 23, 1902.

NORTH V. SOUTH. Recently upon several occasions we have pointed out the injustice that the East Coast is subjected to in the matter of the settlement of the Crown and Native Lands in the district, and it does seem strange that the Government should still go on purchasing large estates in the youth at exorbitant prices when there are thousands of acres that can bo obtained here for about one tenth the cost. It was stated the other day that the Government were following their present course with a view of preventing the Southerners from coming Northwards to settle, and there certainly seems good grounds for this contention. Dealing with the squandering of public mouey that is going on in the tjouth the Auckland Herald in a recent issue states “ The passivity with which the North Island regards the unblushing sectional favoritism displayed by the Administration to the South Island may well be stirred by the latest instance of partiality. Wo cannot get Crown and Native Lands thrown open. We cannot induce the Government to exert pressure upon the Assets Board for the purpose of opening up its great Waikato estates. But a solid quarter of a million sterling, in the raising of which the credit of the coiony is involved and liability incurred, is, we are told, to be spent in the compulsory acquisition of the Levels Estate in Timaru, the constituency of Mr H ill-Jones. At the present time the price of such improved laud is at the maximum. Sheep are high, oats are ijeb, wheat, fodder, butter, all kinds of produce, anu ?Y nn wool is markedly improved in value. Yet this is the time chosen by the Administration for another great land purchase, for the cutting up of an estate already improved and contributing to our national wealth. Our public lands are being sedulously withheld from settlement, the Assets Board property is being withheld—how, then, does it come that such mi- . timely energy is displayed in the South, and that it is accompanied by such wholesale disbursements of public money ? We would remind our readers that this is but one instance of the Administrative policy, that we arc perpetually being confronted

by similar forcings of Southern settlement, while the neglected North cannot got the Government to aiiow its wild lands to be entered by waiting settlers, much less to permit the Waikato estates of the Assets Hoard, which tire under Governmental control, to be cut up. The Levels Estate is nominally to be taken “ compulsorily ” after “ the negotiations have been going oil for years.” What does this mean? Is it that the owners are to be forced to sell J j below value, or that the Government is j paying over the amount it was willing to offer in ordinary seasons ? V. hatevc-r the ] explanation of this, the facts remain the I same. Two hundred and fifty thousand ; pounds to be added to our colonial , liabilities to assist .Southern settlement, while without any expenditure whatever 1 ten times the amount of laud could easily J and promptly be opened in Auckland Province were the Government desirous of permitting Northern settlement. Probably this instance is the Alpha of the Ministerial land policy, while the Omega will be the acquisition of improved property somewhere else in the Southern Provinces. Such favoritism may be pleasing to the South, but does it satisfy the North? Will our Auckland members allow it to pass without a protest, and continue to submit unrepiningly to our customary role of Issacher ?