The Backblocks.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 4, 6 January 1904, Page 4

The Backblocks.

Writing on the hardships *xperiMivoJ by settlers in the backblocks, tl.j U'ai>.jjinui Ilerabd says that natural justice demands that men and woman who ore turning the country's waste lands into pasture, living tho hardest of lives and adding ttUalt'h to the State, s'hall be dealt .with liberally. In the next place tfeere is the business aspect of the l|jOstiiyn. We war.'t our bush lands clearing, ajul we want men of means to spenli their money and their livfs in tha task. A big demand, jniul yoiu ! Only the other day a certain Government land official on ttis coa&'t, speaking of the thousand o<f acres under the primeval forest, remarked : "We want men with money to take up these lands, but men with money are not such fools !" Now we contend that our plain duty is to remodel our system until tbis_ great national labour of toreakiu£ "ai bush lands shall attract other than fools. If we have any claim to business foresight we must get our waste country converted into ppijture. If the present conditions ate toad, and there is no room for doubt on that head, they must be imjprovud. Nine-tenths of the hardships arise from two causes—bad roils and brainless officials—and be(oq« any improvement is visible a radical alteration must be made in both. Land boaivis' offices appear at present to be conducted in the interests ot officials. We want to see tlwrn conducted in the interests ol settlement. It has scores of times teen urged that all roads be metalled from the outset, twt- it has miver occurred to anybody to suggest that certain Government officials should be taught reason. The cause is obvious, and Med not be pointed out. Whenever an official of this hopeless class, by i&norapce, by an off-hawd manner, or by a slavish adherence to stereotyped forms, turns away a prospective back-country settler, he does tJ» State an Irreparable injury. And injuries of the kind are as common as the officials of the kind, and thev alas ! aro not few. We wish not to M 6 Thero are sensible and senseless men: in all walks of life Or Government officials we class fljnong o» latter those who regard puhlac as their servants, among the former those who regaid the.nservants of the public, SSI ?L^ aVO read °rs to proporti«i them in their own uiii»ds.