LANDS AND FORESTS.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 122, 3 October 1885, Page 5

LANDS AND FORESTS.

I informed you [yesterday morning that the Minister of Lands had in hand the organisation of the Forests and Agricultural Department. This task has been undertaken by Mr Ballance, who already has quite enough to do in the administration of Lands, "Native and Defence Departments, at the solicitation of his colleagues, but it is probable that when the work of organisation has been completed the administration of these practically new departments will be handed over to fionie other Minister— probably Mr Larnach or Mr Tole. The Lands Department is of course pre-eminently the department in which Mr Ballance's vigorous nature revels, and he is at present giving his attention to the question, which to him is the question of the hour— namely, the settlement of the people upon the land. He has given some consideration to a very able memorandum from the AgentGeneral on the subject which waB recently laid before Parliament. Mr Ballance recogniseß the force of Borne of the AgentGeneral's remarks, but thinks that in the main the objections urged to the difficulty in the way of inducing immigrant settlement of the agricultural class from Great Britain are met by the legislation of last session. It is, however, his intention to immediately advise the Agent-General by letter that the Government are willing to some extent to equaliee the conditions of immigrant settlement, as between Canada and this colony, by contributing a portion of the passage moneys to families of say five in number, who may between them possess capital to the extent of £400, at the rate of £10 per head ; but Mr Ballance does not propose to offer any illegitimate special inducements to this class of immigrant fanner by which they may acquire land under more favourable conditions than other people, for he holds that we have already a colonising power in the sons of our own settlers, who have as much right to be considered as strangers, ( and he qourse ridicules all such ideas as

the gratuitous distribution of the landwealth of the colony to whosoever may ask for it, therefore he holds that whatever inducement may reasonably be offered in the shape of a contribution to the passage money of families, these latter, on their arrival must find their own level as other colonists have had to do.