The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1876.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 138, 2 June 1876, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1876.

Special settlements in the Middle' Island, bo far as they have been tried, have not flourished, even if they have escaped being complete failures. Prom Jackson's Bay nothing is heard but grumbling and complaints, while from Karamea no satisfactory account has ever reached our ears. The reason is not difficult to find. A settlement composed entirely of pauper laborers cannot be expected to succeed. So long as the Q-overnraent finds employment; for them things , go on. pretty Binooibly, but when this ceases, even to make! a bare living becomes an impossibility. The hard-working man may clear 'away the busb and drain his land, but tfiat does not supply him and his family with bread and meat, and, no matter how energetic and persevering he mjiy be, he must eventually succumb to the force of circumstances. At Kati Kati, in the North Island, a special settlement was founded some eight or ten nionths ago by Mr Vesey Stewart, and from thence there comes a far more encouraging account, but the conditions imposed upon the special settlers there werejvery different to those under which the unfortunates at Karamea and Jackson'sßay took up their land. Each family was to receive 300 acres on the understanding not only that they settled upon and cultivated it, but that they, ; brought out with them from home; a certain amount of capital. Forty 'families are now on the land, and at a meeting recently held a general feeling of satisfaction was expressed. M*r

Stewart, the founder of the settlement, made the following, remarks: V ',1 v "We hare only to look at theVonderful change that has occurred within the. last fewmonths in this entire district; roads made; our beautiful biy .now resounds with the ■■ whittle of the stenm engine "through ; the far distant hills, capitalists and' settlers are inquiring after the adjacent land for purchase, and I hold in my hand a letter from a tenant farmer, asking me my advice as to coming to this country, stating he has a capital of £2000, and several others with an , equal or greater amount of capital would accompany him if I would, after sis months' practical experience, advise to come " Another settler said : «« Scarcely a year ago I rode from -my farm to Bowentown, and there were literally but two houses between the Aoangatete and Kati Katl. The other day, whilst riding here, my eves were charmsd with the sight of many flourishing homesteads, attesting a rapid progress I have never' observed before in all m« Australian or New Zealand experience. , Tne substantialhouses and the thorough "'practical "way in which the grasses have > been sown, and the; fences erected, show conclusively how suitable the settlers are to the colony, and guarantees them future success." "When shall we hear the special aettlera on the "West Coast of this Island speaking in a similar strain?