The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1914 LAND SETTLEMENT.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 93, 19 December 1914, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1914 LAND SETTLEMENT.

(With which is incorporated The Taihapo Post 'J.n3 Waimarino News.)

In discussing the subject of land settlement we are in no way influenced by party spirit, for we are already convinced that there was a great deal too much insincerity indulged in on all sides in connection with this question during the late election campaigns. The land question seems to have been the trump card, ready, up-the-sleeve, to win the trick, or to score a point. While reading in the various newspapers what candidates said in connection with land from the hustings, we have wondered whether they were fooling themselves or trying to fool their auditors. They talked so glibly of settling land as though there were a hundred million acres of Crown lands still left for settlement, and about as much ,:|more of land left in Native ownership. There can be no good purpose served by dodging the facts; why don’t they say exactly what land is unsettled, and what area of it is fit for settlement? There are official returns and tables which definitely indicate what Crown lands are yet at the disposition of the Government; and in consulting these tables we find that there arc now only about four and -half million acres of Crown land left for sub-division and settlement. In an accompanying table we are apprised that of this area there is not more than .100,000 acres of it that is firstclass ; so it will readily be seen that there is little chance of providing for the almost numberless applicants who desire land in small holdings. To talk of putting settlers on Crown lands is like dangling a decaying carrot before a donkey. Many candidates for Parliamentary honours seem to play with the Native land question in just such a similar manner. It is true that according to latest returns there are still 6,000,000 acres of unalienated Na-

tive lands, but 2,000,000 acres of them arc rugged mountain tops, rivers and lakes. Another 2.000. acres arc leased to Europeans, leaving only less than 2.000. acres of all qualities *to be divided among 45,000 Native owners—about 44 acres each. It is apparent that the Maoris are fast becoming landless; and, if settlement is to go on. it • must take place in the very near future almost entirely under lands for settlement legislation. Mr. Massey has said that the very largest estates must be submitted to the cutting up process, if not voluntarily, or by sale to the Crown, then by force under the pressure of the graduated land tax. No honest man that is conversant with the facts will go on cozening and cajoling those land hunters who are deadly earnest in their land hunger. Land reforms are imperative if production is to b

pushed to somewhere near w'

in out is not going ou'to anything like the extent- on leasehold land as it is on that which is freehold. The pastoral runs leases have peon a thorn to administrations for some years past, and they, are none too satisfactory to holders. The tenure is not such as to encourage improvement, and no government is likely to grant longer leases while the land is held in such huge areas. Holders of moderate-sized areas who improve and produce the utmost should be given a lease of such duration as woidd cause them to feel that while improving they are building up a home for themselves. The huge, unwieldy areas, only partially or indifferently worked, should he divided into workable sized holdings and dealt with in the same way. Land settlement, owing to the limited area now available, is likely to give trouble to whatever admiuistra* lion may be tn power in the future, and no good purpose can. be served by trying 1o look pasf the fact that if settlement is to proceed, as heretofore it must be very largely under the Lands for Settlement laws.