A VOICE FROM THE WAIRARAPA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4311, 14 January 1875, Page 2

A VOICE FROM THE WAIRARAPA.

(BY NE3TOK.) Any one at all observant of the signs of the times, cannot fail to note the rapid progress made by the Wairarapa during the past nine years. No matter in what point you institute a comparison, the contrast is equally striking. Nine years • ago, outlying settlers lived in nightly dread of massacre from some hauhau fanatic. Rivers unspanned by bridges, roads unmade, or, when partly so, in winter a sea of mud. One might dwell ad nauseam on this subject. In a few days the Ruamahunga bridge will be formally opened, completing the link of ' communication between .Wellington and the Taueru district. On the completion of the Taueru bridge, and of the road to Alfredton —for the one tenders are called and the other has been begun—uninterrupted communication will be had with Wellington from some hundred square miles of country. The individual enterprise has, too, more than kept pace with what, by way of contrast, may be termed the collective. New houses have sprung up all over the district; miles upon miles of fencing are fast eradicating that stock-owner's pest—the scab. In all this the Wairarapa has but Bhared in the general advancement of the colony. What are the causes of prosperity in other parts of the colony I will not presume to know. Its causes here are referrable to two sources. The increase in value of wool has enabled runholders to fence their pioperties, aud concomitantly with the increased value of stock has created a corresponding demand for land. I might instance a few properties, that a few years ago did not pay interest and working expenses, recently changing hands at a fabulous figure. Another source of this prosperity is the expenditure of public money. There is abundance of work for every one, aud hundreds more to come. Consequent upon the increase of population has been more than a commensurate rise in the price of meat. There is no probability of a future recourse to boiling down, as some yeara ago. But with all this prosperity there is cause for alarm. A spirit of speculation is rapidly imbuing the people. Land changes hands at fancy prices, while the provincial estate—what i 3 left of it—is being sacrificed to keep up appearances. Is it not remarkable that land, in private hands worth from £1 to £2, can be bought from the Government at 10s. The land that will be required to settle the late arrivals has been sold to speculators. A glance at the last Provincial Gazette will show to any one at all familiar with the configuration of the district and the capabilities of the soil, that within the last three months thousands of acres have been alienated ut less than half their valne. To Bhow that I indulge uot merely in a general condemnation of such a wholesale sacrifice of the public estate, I will descend to particular instances in confirmation of my statement, as well as indicative of my local knowledge. Laud in the Maungaraki block realised at auction from 255. to 453. per-acre. this

land there is no access whatever now, nor can there be except at a vast expense, short as the distance is from'the Masterton and "Castle Point-road. In the JCtu-umahinino block, land of an indifferent quality, and at present.utterly inaccessible, was lately sold at auction' at £1 per acre. I may be told a road will soon be laid off and formed close to, if not through, this block. The land is intrinsically worth £l, and would have realised that price last year, when it was offered at an upset price of £2. This very road a ove alluded to passes through land of much greater intrinsic value, and yet that is being sold privately at 10s. The worst feature of the case is that all this land was withheld from sale, pending its survey and the determination of the best road line. No sooner is this determined, before a surveyor has fixed the boundaries of one single selecapplied for perhaps years ago, than the restrictions are withdrawn, and a rush of speculators takes place. Now, not one of these speculators has ever been on the land. From whom then did they derive their information ? How does it happen that the Wellington capitalist is aware of the block being thrown open for selection, when many would be bona, fide Bettlers in the district, who have been waiting for two years for the opening of this same land for sale, were ignorant of it ! It may be said in explanation that it was gazetted. True ; but did these capitalists derive their information solely from the Gazette. I would venture to state, and that without fear of contradiction, that the information came from parties interested in its sale—and perhaps in its purchase as well. How often has it happened that the working man has been refused land, afterwards sold in large blocks to the runholder. Not many months ago a would-be purchaser was positively informed that the section he was so bent upon having was not yet for sale. Not to be baulked, he went to a Wellington merchant and stated his case. They went to the land office, the merchant applied for the same land, and got it for his client. No demur was made on this second application. I think I have dwelt long enough upon this point to show how recklessly the public estate is realised.

I have not attempted to enter into the merits of the General and the Provincial Government administrations. The former has so far stood in the relation of the confiding uncle, the latter of the spendthrift nephew. How plausibly the impecunious young gentleman propounds some scheme to his by this time astute relative. "If I only had so much more money, I could invest it to so much advantage." How often have our projected roads and bridges been delayed because, forsooth, the General Government would not grant a loan itself, nor allow the province to borrow on its own account. The country has Mr. Vogel to thank for his foresight in procuring the reservation of 80,000 acres in the Forty-mile Bush for the location of immigrants on a system of deferred payments. But for this reservation, all that fine block would have been now open for selection at 10s. per acre. It is needless to say what the. result would have been. A friend of mine in Greytown has documentary evidence, clearly showing that but for the above reservation, and the uncertainty as to its boundaries, the whole block would have now betn in the market. On Thursday (to-day), at the opening of the Te Ore Ore bridge, the Superintendent will have an opportunity of telling us what he has done for the province. At what cost, let him state !