Land for Settlements.

Manawatu Herald, 2 September 1893, Page 3

Land for Settlements.

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The Land for Settlemants Act Amendment iJil', introduced by the Minister for Lands, is one of the mo3t comprehensive and dangerous measnresever submitted to the House. Ho proposes to place all landed estate in the colony nt the disposal of the Minister of Lrinds. Iff may cut up private properties a? ho likes, and redistribute it in accordance with his own views on landscape gardening or equity. If any property is in his opinion required for .settlement, or to provide homesteads for other high-lying pastoral lands in the neighbourhood, or to promote the settlement of snch high land, or for the exchange of low-lying or ngri cultural land suitable for settlement for high land suitable on'y for pastoral purpose?, the Minister may, through the Governor, arrange for the^ purchase or exchange of such lands, and-if the owner n- fuses to sell or exchange or fails to come to a voluntary agreement on the subject, his land may be taken under the Public Works Act, and compensation be assessed under that Act. No man's estate would h? safe under <?ueh a law, and no doubt "social pests'' who have succeeded in acquiring valuable properties would soon find them hacked and cut about in the most wholesale manner if such an 4ct were passtd. It should be termed "An Act to enable the Minister of Lands to ruin large landholders." Tt is the most "bnrsting-up " proposal yet put forward.— /W.