CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 138, 13 June 1871, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

■ OUR WASTE LANDS.

No. 111. To the Editor op the Nelson Evening Mail. Sir, — The fear of trespassing upon your space and kindness obliged me to cut short my yesterday's letter at a point which, by being mistaken for the conclusion, might leave me open to miscon-/ struction. I therefore, without delay, pass on to the further consideration of the subject. In my last I endeavoured to show, that the Provinces were called into being, for the purpose of settling our. Waste Lands, and that this Province, at any rate, does not seem to have discharged itself of that duty even in the ordinary way of introducing immigrants into its midst. As things are at present, there ia no doubt

that the authorities are wise in not introducing an annual stock of immigrants. But I am still far from thinking that if a different course had been pursued from tho beginning, we might not now be enabled to dispose of a considerable number of them every year. However, our concern now is, not with what might have been, but what is ; not how we are to introduce more labor into the country, but how we are to induce a portion of the labor which we already possess to direct its energies to the subjugation of the bush and the cultivation of our waste lauds. I assume, with the consent I think of all, that the duty of offering inducement to men to go upon wild lands for purposes of settlement, rests with the Executive and the Provincial Council, the former to propound a scheme, and the latter to adopt it aud vote the money necessary for carrying it out. But these powers have not exerted themselves to introduce supplies of labor, neither, I think, have troubled themselves to devise means for inducing the labor^ we already have to " scatter round " and " make tracks " for the interior. And yet, as I have already said, without some strong inducement, wa shall not be able to persuade young ri^fW to quit the immediate neighborhood of the town and its loafing propensities, for the hard work and privations of backwoods life. . y Nature, in all her systems, points out to us the necessity of frequently recurring centres of action. So I thiuk it ought to be in the settlement of waste lands. I believe that if the Government were to establish villages, not to lay out townships, which they have already done, but to settle families in villages at the Howard aud at riamp-Jen, or the Four Eiver Plains they would thereby give the necessary impetus to settlement iv the valleys of the various tributaries of the Buller. Men in outlying districts like to have within reach a centre of population, let it be never so small; and I am certain that the prospect of spending Saturday evening and Sunday in the midst of even twenty families, would reconcile most working-men to a week of solitude and toil. To do this, the Government and the people would have to be prepared to spend a certain sum of money every year for a number of years, the number to be agreed upon beforehand. The land occupied by each family or individual ought I think to be paid for on the "deferred payments" system, should it become law, but, more than that, they should not be required for, say, five years, and during that period : any family, or married couple, or single man intending to marry, who chose to volunteer for the service, and belonging to the Province, ought to be placed upon their land free of cost, and have given to them the materials for a house, and a year's supply of tea, sugar, and flour, due security beiDg taken for occupation and improvement in each case. No doubt this would cost money, but out of a vote of £96,000 surely we ought to be aide to ' spare five or six thousand pounds every year of the five, for so vital a purpose. And after all what more is it than a farmer stocking his farm? True, wecannot sell off the stock as a farmer can, but tho stock will make money for us and assist us to bear our burden of taxation,. and will ultimately become what we so much want, a producing agricultural population, and the children of such settlers born or reared at a distance from the loafing delights of Nelsou will be content with a J country life aud will spread still farther ifeflfl field. If we do not feel incliued to spai^H this mouey we ought to be made to spar_H| it. Considering we are colonists with a wilderness at our back doors, I think we have a great deal too many lollies and other kickshaws. Yours, &c, Backwoodsman.