LAND AGGREGATION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1973, 6 May 1919, Page 3

LAND AGGREGATION.

“A Traveller" writes to (lie Dominion : At the meeting at which the Dannevlrke branch of the Farmers’ Union was formed, one of the speakers took credit to the farmers unions for defeating 1 Mr McXab’s Land Bill. If that gentleman < r fmld get the. Minister to go through the coast from Dannevirke, ho would be delighted with what is permitted and is being done under the present Act. From the Manawatu bridge to Waipatiki there is a large block of land in very few hands, and .getting fewer. Two small schools, usually closed. At Waipaliki, store closed, school removed, several houses empty. At Weber, where there.'used to. be two clergymen, four blacksmiths, several stores, 1 So or, ll -c , oc.! roll, good hotel, billiard room, cricket club, the position now is half of the houses are empty, no clergymen, no blacksmith, no bootmaker*, one store, a hotel, even the lock-up has not been used for over 10 years; butter factory closed down, 45 on the school roll. At AVaionc, the same story. Fongaroa the same, only more so. To Mount Williams, from Weber, three or four names dominate the landscape. On to Wimbledon two names. from Wimbledon to the coast, about tour cover almost all (he laud, f was informed that the land was hilling in(o groups. One consists ol about twenty original holdings, another of about fifteen, and so on. All land, remember, suitable for moderatesized farms —homes that sent out plenty of the very host “cannonfodder" are now standing deserted. Churches closed, schools languishing—even the M.P. has not bothered to show up for live years.