MR VESEY STEWART'S SETTLEMENT.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1868, 18 February 1880, Page 3

MR VESEY STEWART'S SETTLEMENT.

["Bay of Plenty Times."]

The settlement of the Te Puke block, which has juet been granted to Mr G. V. Stewart, is likely to give a great impetus to the prosperity of Tauranga and the whole Bast Coast district. We agree with the " Waikato Times" that " if every block of land that came into the hands of the Government were as satisfactorily disposed of as the Te Puke block, on the larger portion of which Mr Yesey Stewart is about to locate a third special settlement, the colonisation of the North Island would be more rapidly pushed ahead. The block consists of some 25,000 acres of land, far above the average quality, and particularly suitable for settlement in moderate sized holdings. OE this [the Government has granted 15,000 acres to Mr Stewart, under certain conditions, for special settlement purposes, reserving the remainder for sale in the ordinary manner. Three thousand acres of the remaining 10,000 will be at once offered under the deferred payment clauses of the Act for the benefit of intending settlers within the colony. A village settlement block, timber, and Native reserves, will aIBO be set apart. The price to be paid by Mr Stewart to the Government for the 15,000 acres is £19,700, of which an instalment of £3OOO has been already paid, the balance to be paid within two years. The average price is thus some twenty-six shillings per acre, six shillings an acre more than the upset price of country lands, but still not so much but that Mr Stewart will easily be able to dispose of it at home to the right class of settlers—men with both capital and experience. Much of the land, fully half, is represented to be worth two pounds per acre ; but if the Government could possibly have made more money out of the block by putting it up to auction in the usual way, they will, by acting as they have done, have gained far move, indirectly, by the enhanced value which the special settlement will give to the adjacent lands (for they will shortly have land open for sale on either side of it), and by ensuring the Una fide settlement of so large an area. Mr Stewart is bound by his conditions to introduce at least one immigrant for every seventy-eight acres. In the case of the pro posed Broomhall settlement we most emphatically protested against the grant of large tracts of country to mere speculators, where not even was there a fair price paid for the land, but no material guarantee was afforded that the work of bona fide settlement would be carried out, and where too there was no provision made for those within the colony, who had perhaps been looking forward for years to the opening of the particular block in question with a view to purchase and settlement. In reserving two-fifths of the Te Puke block in their own hands the Government have done away with the latter objection, while, as regards the former, not only is a fair price obtained and a sufficient guarantee given "to comply with certain Btringent conditions of settlement, but in Mr Stowart'o No. 1 and" No. 2 special settlements, located in the same district, the colony has the best of all guarantees of his action in the future. Whatever may have been the trials and difficulties which interfered with the progress of the No. 1 Katikati settlement in its earlier days, or the causes which led to them, there can be no doubt of its present prosperity, nor of the marked success which has followed the location of the No. 2 settlement. In the second party there were a far larger number of men and means, and not a few with considerable agricultural experience, and it ia from persons of thu class principally that Mr Stewart will seek to make up his No. 3 party. The circumstances of the rural population at home are eminently favorable to such an undertaking at the present time. Formerly, it was the labourer who sought refuge from low wages and poverty in the colonial paradise of eight hours' work, eight hours' play, eight hours' sleep, and eight shillings a day—now, it is the farmers themselves with capital to farm, but with no Bafe investment in farming at home for that capital, who seek new fields for their enterprise. With the success of the previous settlements an accomplished fact, with his own character and influence at home, with the minds of numbera of would-be immigrants

turned to the colonies as the only outlet for them, and with so fine a block of land to take up, Mr Stewart's No. 3 special settlement cannot fail to be even more successful than the other two, for the blame will be his only, if, with such a selection as he will be able to make, he brings out any but thoroughly practical men with ample means, and in evory way suitable for the life beforo them."