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The New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1878.

The work of establishing what are popularly known as special settlements cannot, as all experience shows, be undertaken successfully, in this colony at least, by any Government. Practical!}-, by such moans an attempt is made to utilise waste land in a commercial sense, and in so far as it partakes of the mercantile character it is unsuited for the interference of the Colonial Government. The want of success of the great scheme of military settlement after the native rebellion in 18G3 must always remain as a warning against enterprises of this kind. Theoreticallynll the elements of success appeared to surround that undertaking, and yet it was a costly and most disastrous failure ; but out of it, when Government interference ceased, there has grown by individual efforts a very prosperous community. Some of the Provincial Governments had great faith in the forcing system, and continually held out inducements to men who had neither physical ability, nor money, nor experience, to go into the business of reclaiming and cultivating land. We have had the Auckland special settlements under the forty-acre system, and we have such settlements as the Knramea, Martin Bay, and, lastly, Jackson Bay, as proofs that the nursing system is a thoroughly bad one. The responsibility is in the first instance assumed by the Government; the men who take up land in such places do so not with the idea that they are going to help themselves, but that they are going to confer an obligation upon the colony. As they necessarily find the work severe and early settlement in a new country marked with hardship and many inconveniences,- discontent becomes rife; then, as somebody must be blamed, the whole weight of dissatisfaction falls upon the promoters of the settlement, whereas, although the radical fault is in the system, the blame is really to a very great extent with the settlers themselves, if not with them only. Those who roughed it in the early days in the first settlements, with no help but their own stout hearts and strong arms, listen with wonder to the whining complaints of men who have facilities and aids of which the old colonist did not dream, and who yet with all these advantages can do no good for themselves.

The loudest and latest complaints come from the special settlement commenced some three years ago at Jackson Bay. If wo believe the settlers whose petitions reach the Parliament the enterprise has been, like the others, an expensive failure ; but the official report recently laid before Parliament and printed shows that there is at least a residuum of advantage, and that,’ as the centre of a district rich in natural products, the future of the new settlement is one of great promise. On this point we quote a passage from the report by the Resident Agent, now before us :

In judging of the policy of initiating this settlement and the amount of success attending the experiment, due regard must bo had to the prospective as well ns the realised results that have already accrued ; to its surroundings in the shape of natural advantages ; and also to the character of the immigrants sent here, whose exaggerated notions of what the Government were bound to do for them were only equalled by their thorough unsuitableness for the task of pioneer-. ing a new settlement As a centre from which to operate in opening up the South-west Coast, no better site could have been chosen, possessing, as it docs, one of the best harbors on the West Coast (having no bar risks, and being easily accessible to either steam or sailing vessels), vast natural resources that can and are now being turned to account by the settlers, and embracing within its area the outlet to the great natural road from the East to the West Coast, through the Haast Pass. The realized results may be summed up thus : The settlement of over four hundred souls in a district formerly unoccupied ; the establishment of industries that promise to develop into great importance and that will attract settlers of a kind more suited to the requirements of the place than those with whom the experiment was made; the stocking of the Clarke and other river runs with- cattle ; and the mineral discoveries made to the southward through the facilities given to prospectors who made tills their base of operations.

Tho railway of the future—the extension of the Otago Central by the Haast Pass to Hokitika —will no doubt make the fortune of Jackson Bay; but in the meantime there is hope that the settlement will continue to grow. It appears, notwithstanding the grumbling, that a firm footing has been obtained, and probably the best thing that could now he done would be the absolute knocking away of the Government props, and leaving the settlors to work out their own future. There has been already a very large expenditure incurred, and the settlers are heavily indebted to the Government for stores, &0., ,tc. The sponge of a Parliamentary vote might be used to efface the “dead horse;” and it the experience so dearly bought in this and other instances can save the colony from such follies in the future, the money will not have been wholly wasted.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM18781001.2.8

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5464, 1 October 1878, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
885

The New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1878. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5464, 1 October 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1878. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5464, 1 October 1878, Page 2

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