WHAT THE COUNTRY NEEDS. A Vigorous Settlement Policy.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 40, 6 April 1901, Page 8

WHAT THE COUNTRY NEEDS. A Vigorous Settlement Policy.

THERE are bigns and portents on the political horizon which aie full of significance. For many years past the Government have been devoting a considerable share of their time and attention to shaping and passing measures in the interest of the workers in the towns and cities. And, at the present day, the New Zealand artizan or worker stands in a far better position than, and enjoys numerous advantages over, his fellows in other countries. In fact, he has been the white-haired boy of the party which has swayed the destinies oi this colony for more than a decade. His every want has been met, and for the last half-dozen years at least he has been the object of the most solicitous care, and has been simply lapped round with comforts. • • • There is another and much bigger party in the body politic who has felt rather aggrieved that he has not received by any means the like degree of attention. We refer to the country settler. He has a broad back and carries many weary burdens, but he has not the same knack of worrying Ministers into action on his behalf that his town brother has shown. However, there are indications abroad that his turn is coming at last. The most hopeful of these signs is the fact that the Premier has just assumed the administration of the Land for Settlements Act and intends to make a much larger use of the means and machinery provided by Parliament for the promotion of close settlement. • • • In the North Island there are two districts simply stagnating for want of an adequate yeoman population. These are the Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa districts. The broad tracts of fertile country that ought to be dotted over with smiling homesteads and which should present on every hand the signs of prosperous tilth are largely locked up in sheep pastures. Wool and mutton are the staple products. In the meantime, the demands for closer settlement in these two favoured regions grow more imperious every day. The sons and daughters of the settlers already there want land upon which to establish homes and it is a question which shall prevail in the struggle for existence there — sheep or human beings. Mr. Seddon has just furnished the answer by taking over the machinery of the Land for Settlements Act into his own hands. • • • This will also enable the Minister of Lands to concentrate his attention upon another crying want of the country — the roading of the backblocks. He has already traversed the greater part of the North Island, and has seen for himself how true and forcible is the figure of speech used by Mr. Hogg, M.H.R. — that the back-blocks settler has all these many years been serving a term of penal semtude in the effort to carve out a subsistence for himself and his family. The country settlers are the backbone of New Zealand, and it is useless to expect the colony to flourish unless the conditions are made fa\ourable for their successful establishment upon the soil. Hand in hand, therefore, with the

bursting-up of the big estates to meet the demands of land for close settlement, must go a systematic scheme of rapidly completing the roading of the bush districts and, back blocks, so as to bring the struggling settler in touch with a market. *• • * The Government are also exerting themselves to find and exploit fresh markets for the colony's produce. Their negotiations for the opening of regular steam communication with South Africa, the appointment of an officer to manage the Department of Commerce, and the still more recent engagement of Mr. John D. Gow, of Dunedin, to travel abroad in quest of favourable openings for New Zealand trade and produce, are all steps towards the same end. We hail all these indications with thorough satisfaction. If our towns and cities are to keep up the march of progress, then the interests of the rural population must receive every consideration. The city artisan has had his turn. Now let the hard-worked struggling country settler have his innings.