GOVERNMENT AND DEFERRED PAYMENT.

Patea Mail, 6 August 1881, Page 3

GOVERNMENT AND DEFERRED PAYMENT.

The report presented to Parliament by the Crown Lands Department, referring to the deferred payment system, says—Under the deferred payment system since its introduction in 1872 many districts have been settled that under the cash system would still have remained forest or sheep-walks, whereas we now have had np to date 8925 persons, who have selected 894,094 acres, of which 259,540 acres have been made freehold by fulfilment of conditions, and each succeeding year will add by increasing quantities lo the total area made freehold as the ten years of each selector runs out. It is very easy, however, to overdo the deferred payment system in a district, because, as already stated, its tendency is to induce people to settle on land before they are ready. In such cases the settler’s resource is to find occasional employment in his neighbourhood. It becomes, therefore, necessary in opening land under this system to consider the surroundings, and to have in view the evils arising from having too many of the dependent class of settlers brought together in the same district* As a general rule about one-third of the deferred payment and two-thirds on immediate payment does very well in a large block. This was the proportion observed in the settlement of the Waimate Plains, also at Kairanga and other bush blocks. Respecting villiage settlement, the report remarks : There are at the date of this report an aggregate of 1362 sections from £ lo 50 acres each open for selection on the villiage settlement conditions in thirty-two districts on deferred payments ; 153,500 acres in 710 sections on agricultural lease, about 400.000 acres of which 42,034 acres are surveyed into 402 sections, on homestead 700.000 acres in twenty-seven blocks open for selection. All the surveyed sections are mapped and published, and photographed plans are obtainable at the Land Offices of the various districts in which they are situated.