SETTLEMENT.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1074, 6 January 1872, Page 2

SETTLEMENT.

[to the editor.] Sib— There ia no subject of more paramount importance to the successful colonization of the West Coast than the mode of fixing the population on the Waste Lands. So very few of the present inhabitants intending to make this their home is no doubt partly the cause why so very little interest is taken in it. Even our law-makers in the County seem bewildered with the subject, and appear to be callous as to how they dispose of the land so long as they keep the County Exchequer full. It is for the purpose of ventilating this subject 1 now endeavor to draw public attention to it, hoping by that means .that some improvements may bo made in the law affecting the waste lands that may conduce in offering facilities to parties to settle down. The present law provides for parties purchasing freeholds, subject to the entry of miners on the uncultivated portions of' it for a certain number of years without compensation. It also prpvides for parties taking up leaseholds, either rural or suburban, with the same proviso. Various opinions are held whether it is most desirable to sell it as freeholds, or to lease the land, but' most persons settling prefer the former undoubtedly, if they have the capital to spare. If they have not the capital or circumstances preclude them owning the land, they have the opportunity of leasing it. Now, if this system was fair and legitimately carried out as . in "Victoria, where the rent is taken as part payment for the land there would not be much ] to divided into rural and suburban without any distinction as to the locality, and. a most unheard of rent (4s per acre) demanded if a poor settler takes up ten acres of ground, whereas if a richer iran than he takes up thirty acres he is only charged 2s per acre. Both being in the same locality, the ten acres are called suburban and the thirty acres rural. Now, is this fair and legitimate ; it may be legal, but the parties framing this law must have had the reverse ratio of a poor man's interest or the interest of the country at large. To call the same land rural or suburban shows that our law makers are ignorant of the meaning of the_ words. To charge such a r rent, even 2s per acre, is preposterous. One shilling an acre is even too. much, unless it was accepted as an instalment towards: the purchase ; then it might enpourage men to settle, and that ought to be the aim of our legislators. Let them define what ia meant by suburban — how far it would be from Greymouth or Hokitika before one could rusticate in the country; then let i them lease from five acres or upwards at a shilling per acre for twenty years, reserving the rights and privileges of the miner to search for gold on any uncultivated portion df the leasehold for that period. It' would not follow even then that it would be desirable to lease all that is applied for without a careful enquiry as fcr whether any lead of gold may be in it. % limiting i£ to "small blocks of twenty acres each would preclude the ground being taken up by capitalists, and encourage, bona fide, settling which will never prove, injurious to. the miners, I am, <fee, P. T. H.