Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1891. Spying Investigations.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 30 May 1891, Page 2

Manawatu Herald SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1891. Spying Investigations.

We have heard lately of the supreme efforts that are being made by the Rangers appointed by the present Minister of Lands, to unearth any action that may have the least appearance of dummyism on the part of holders of Crown Lands. From what we have been informed, it appears that it is the Minister's opinion that directly a man has paid a first deposit upon a piece of land, he developes into a " bloated " aristocrat, who has only "to sit upon a rail and watch his beeves grow fat." Why we are forced to this opinion, is, that the Eanger has been around the Horowhenua block making inquiries not only as to the actual ownership and occupiers of the land, but as to the stock running upon it, and has warned those, who are so corrupt as not to allow the grass to waste, and have therefore admitted their neighbour's stock, that unless they purchase stock of their own, they must allow no one else, or themselves, to benefit by it ! Can absurdity or harshness go much further ? A Minister sells land on deferred payments so as to enable a poor man to take up land. He further makes the payment to spread over a term of years so that the buyer may make improvements, and, to avoid any misapprehension, forces the owner to make these improvements within stated periods and of certain values. All these arrangements have been made to secure a fair bargain, between the government and the purchaser, being carried out. The settler enters into his part upon the assumption that with a little ready cash that he has saved, he will be enabled to pay the deposit money and the two following half yearly payments, and to fall the area of bush in accordance with the agreement. He has to do all this on his capital, and has to secure work, if it is possible, to earn a living in the mean time, and to save against the time he must needs sow and fence. After sowing he has to provide for another spell of unreproductive labour, and has also to secure for a further area of bush being fallen. This makes a large hole in any " working " man's capital, and it would have been thought that no Minister would rush in and dictate to the owner as to the particular fashion that he should reap that which he has sown. Yet one of the Woi'king-man's Ministry is the first to show him what hard task-masters he has set over himself. " You have your land, you have grass, it must be your fault that you cannot buy sheep or cattle to graze it," is practically what he is now told. The harshness now shown exhibits the cloven hoof of those whose possession of a little brief authority has made demented, but it is a warning of the miserable, hector-ridden lives leasehold settlers, with their cumbrous conditions, would spend, if this same Minister was likely to remain long in office. The absurdity of the restrictions may be noted by inquiring

what difference it can make to the Minister of Lands whether the sheep that eats the owner's grass are those that belong to himself, belong to his neighbour, or belong to the auctioneer or banker. Thoroughly carried out to its fullest extent, and possibly it may be intended that it should be, a settler on these deferred payment lands may never be able to feed an animal, because, to be his own., he must be able to sliotv, 16 tlie satistion of the Minister, that at the time lie purchased them he owed no man anything. The deferred payment settler must act strictly on the cash system, the paternal Government forbid his buying stock 011 bills from the auctioneer, forbid him to anticipate his shearing by a wool lien, to enable him to make his half-yearly payment, and forbid him to obtain an advance from a Bank to enable him to secure a large amount of improvements being done I This manner of treating settlers is pauperising indeed, and none but the hopeless town walkers would accept land, the working of which is to be conducted under the direction of Mr McKenzie and under the spying investigations of his rangers.