Shameful Neglect.

Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 341, 6 December 1907, Page 3

Shameful Neglect.

Wg have been asked to re publish the following leading article which appeared recently in the Wellington Post:—

■“My Ministers are fully alive to the hardships of our settlers, especially of those in the back blocks, consequent upon want ot access to their holding*. You will be assed to make liberal prevision for the oonstrao-. tion of roads, telephones, and each other conveniences as may render the good work done by those settiers loss irksome and trying than it has been in the past. This sympathetic language was put by hw Excellency’* advisers into the speech with which he opened the present session of Parliament on the 27th June. Nearly four months have since passed ; a few more weeks will bring the session to a close; and the questions to which we invite the attention of the Minister of Lands, bis colleagues, bis fellow-mem-bers, and his fellow colonists, aro : How much has b. en done to give practical effect to the easy sympathy expressed in the Gov if er nor’a speech ? and how much is going to h-Jlbe done before the session clones? Vo the Ml first uf these oaeetions the only possible ansUs wer is “Nothing,” and we are surely justified in aaying that both the Government the Legislature will bo disgraced if the Same answer proves to be equally applicable to the second. The Land Bill is through and after all the disappointments we are quite able to appreciate the solid progress that has been me.de. Retrogression there has unfortunately been on some impo-tant pointe but on the whose we do not- care to dispute the claim put forward by tho Minister of Lands in the interview which we published yesterday, viz, that “it makes a very big advance on the legislation of the pant.” Tho Bill will put more people on the land; it will give them on the whole a moie reasonable tenure ; but it le-ives absolutely untouched the most cruel feature of the land policy of the past and present, and one that in its immediate effects at any rate goes even deeper than the question of graAccording to Ruskin, one of the fallacies underlying the modern passion for quick travelling is the belief that because a man io whizzed from point to point at the rate of a mile a minute ho is therefore any happier either st the end of tbo journey or enroute. According ro the trenchant criticism which appears in another column under the heading ‘Topsy-Turvy’’, a somewhat simiiiar fallacy vitiates the prevailing theory of land r?! tie men t. People aro rushed on to the land wholesale and post-haste, too often to break their fortunes and their hearts, and to roin their whole lives, when a more de-

liberate progress, while delaying the process * of paper settlement, would save them from untold suffer.ngt-, and make them prosper ous and happy settlers That gold is a useless possession to a man on a desert island, who bas ro means of getting away is a com-mon-place which the most ignorant and unimaginative of men may be regarded as capable of grasping. But that good land is useless without good roads, that crops are little better than weeds if they cannot be brought to market, th it civilisation itself is dependant upon inter-communication these equally elementary truths seem to be •s yet very imperfectly apprehended by the able men who control our land policy. Nor do they appear to have realised that to t>-ap Ignorant men into desirable sections which are desirable in everything except that tor. want of roads they must spell isolation, hear break, ruin for the sturdiest settlers is a cruelty and a fraud utterly unworthy of a country which claims to observe a high standard of public honour and humanity, I pity the fools who went into these traps,” ■ays our authority, “especially those who were mad enough to bring their wives with them— to slowlv but surely commit suicide. The mention of loading for roads gives them an imprefsion that will be linked up with civilisation, and they are sadly disilluDecent reading, he calculates, would involve a charge of between £1 or £1 10s an Sere, which would only mean an extra rental of Is fid. If the amount required were •eyeral times larger, should not the position nevertheless be fairly and squarely faoed, so that at whatever rental may be necessary the applicant may get exactly what he thinks he in getting, instead of finding after he has staked his all upon the venture, that the Government has given him cheap land, but has failed to provide that without which the cheapest land is nothing but a curse ? When a private citizen cute up land for sale the law compels him to give access to every section, access not merely by lines ruled on a gaudily coloured plan but by roads formed and metalled to the satisfaction of the local authority. Why aro not purchasers or tenants who deal with the State protected in the same way ? Why is the Minister for Lands alone allowed to violate the cardinal rule of public policy, which requires that where a man dispwes of land be shall provide it with that reasonable aooi»8 which alone can give it real value f And why, having a licenM to disregard this rule doeti so humane a man as Mr M'Nab so far forget bis duty to his fellows as to avail him- ’ * of U 1 N ow that the land Bill has oea»,4- to trouble, wo nek the '-mister to coneidot these questions carefully, and to take the appropriate action before the session olose*. “rhe Goverrment is like a man stand: ng on his head,” nays the critic already quoted. “The land policy is upside down.” Broad indeed will bo Mr M'Nab’s achievement if ho snceeedp. in placing both upon thek feet.