PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY AUGUST, 5, 1880. OPENING THE PLAINS.

Patea Mail, 5 August 1880, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY AUGUST, 5, 1880. OPENING THE PLAINS.

We arc able to announce, upon definite information, that the Government arc completing arrangements, as to survey and other details for putting in the market a block of the Waimate Plains. Various rumours to this effect have been current, and it will be satisfactory to the public of this County to have definite assurance that the policy of settling the Plains is to be put into immediate operation. The area to bo offered is understood to bo considerable, and will doubtless comprise the land nearest to the settled districts. The Parihaka side of the Plains need not concern intending settlers at present. The intervening area, or such portion' as may not be reserved to native claimants under an extravagant system of political coddling, will be first occupied ; and it is a portion of the south end of the Plains that the Government have scheduled for immediate sale. It may bo expected that this first block will contain one or more township settlements, with small suburban sections; and the rural lots will doubtless be offered in areas of moderate acreage, and will also include a proportion of small allotments. The large farm system has gone far enough in this district. What is done cannot be helped, but the true policy for beuefitting the majority is the encouragement of moderate-sized farms, so that new settlers may not starve a district by employing only a man or two on a thousand acres. A large influx of population may be expected as soon as the Government give official notice by advertisement; and it is well known that many persons along this coast arc awaiting this long expected and oft-deferrod opening of the Plains: and that hundreds, if not thousands, in Canterbury and Otago, arc ready to flock towards Patea County, to bid for allotments on the far-famed Plains.