LANDS FOR SETTLEMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1869, 26 September 1906, Page 3

LANDS FOR SETTLEMENT.

POLICY STATEMENT BY THE PREMIER.

(Special to Times.), Wellington, last night. A statement was made this afternoon by the Premier in regard to the Lands for Settlement policy. Mr Kerries said that it had been stated by one of the Ministers that the present policy could not go on very much longer.

If, he said, the Premier would make a definite statement that the policy was not to be abandoned, it would have a reassuring effect on the country.

The Premier said that this was the first time that he had heard it suggested that anybody said that the purchase of lands under the Lands for Settlement Act was to be stopped. Ho had not made any such statement. What lie had said in his speech on the financial debate was that the colony could not go on purchas ing estates to the extent of three quarters of a million annually without some alteration in the existing land laws. He was quite sure of that. If they went on at the rate of three-quarters of a million a year the amount would probably increase to a million, and from that to a million and a quarter, and so on. Tho Government was suggesting a system by which the scheme could bo considerably relieved. It would be a bad thing to stop tho policy, and no speech that he had ever made could bo said to bear that construction.