THE KIWITEA LAND SALE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue 29, 10 December 1880, Page 3

THE KIWITEA LAND SALE.

In Saturday's issue the Feilding Guardian devotes a leading article to the recent Kiwitea land sale, and launches out strongly against the action of the Government in selling land to settlers without provision being made for roads. We quote the following from . our contemporary's article:—" The sale of bush lands '"without any provision being made for ♦ "roH/fl making is both cruel and unjust to the settler, and little less than . reviving money on false pretences by

the Government. The subsidies are swept away, the 20 per cent of land fund has followed or preceded them, and the small remnant still remaining i.s the one third of each yearly instalment paid by deferred payment selectors, which is but a drop in 'the ocean. The local bodies are helpless. Major Atkinson's proposal to increase their rating power does not inerca.se the power of the people to pay, and the local revenues are quite inadequate for the work of construction. What is to be done ? Many say you cannot expect the Government to make bricks "without straw, or to make roads without money. We say the remedy is in the Government's own hands. Let them add the cost of the roads to the upset price of the land per acre ; let them guarantee the expenditure on roads of the sum added per acre, within three years after the land is sold, and let the settlers on the new block have the benefit of the road work at ruling prices, if they choose to take it. Let the Government revert to the original provision of the Land Act of 1877, and hand over to the local bodies the whole of the deferred payment instalments for road making until one third of the purchase money has been reached. Follow out this policy, and the cry for roads will be confined to the settlers in the blocks already sold, and a limit put to its extension. Many settlers might, owing to the price being increased some 15s. per acre or so by the addition of the road making fund, have to -buy 80 acres where they now buy 100, but they would get a better article for their money, in getting land accessible to their market. They could also earn back their contribution to the roadmaking fund by working at the roads leading past their own property, while the Government and local bodies would be relieved from the continual demand for roads which will increase as pales go on under the present system, to a pitch that no Government will be able to resist. As land is thrown into the market, lying farther and farther back from the sea coast and the railways, the evil will increase, and there is no way out of it but recognising the principle that a land purchaser must pay for bis share of tho roudmaking within his own district, just as bo has to pay for his fencing or clearing, or any other improvement, with this difference, that he must pay the cost of his roadmaking into the Government's bands at the time of purchase, in order that the Government may guarantee at the sale of the land the completetion of the roads on an organised system within a limited time."