LAND FOR THE LANDLESS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 198, 25 September 1909, Page 2

LAND FOR THE LANDLESS.

An important announcement from the Commissioner of Crown Lands appeals in our advertising columns this morning, inviting applications from landless married men for 34 sections in the Totoro Survey District, under improved farm settlement conditions. The land is situated from 10 to 17 this side of Tr Kniti and is in a district finding favor wiui laml-seel;ers at the present tjme,_ A inunlier of sections in the iangitn district, within tm miles of the Waimelia railway station, are al.»n to be offered at a later date under similar conditions. The Land Hoard is enpowered to give preference to the app'ications of retrenched civil servants and co-operative workers who have been discharged from the .Main Trunk railway line and from road works. Preference to the latter class of applications is one to which no valid exception can lie taken, and should be welcomed, although it is a somewhat tardv acknowledgment of a principle ' that should haw been in vogue ere the Mai.i Trunk works were completed. H,ul that been done there would not, a< we have pointed out before, have been such a plethora of unskilled unemplovcd existed during the curly winter inontns. 1 better class of settler for the backcountry could he found than the lionet co-operative worker who is already conversant with pioneering work. Tt is to be hoped that the sections now under offer are but the forerunners of a vigorous policy of land settlement in the country n ow rendered easily accessible liy the Main Trunki line. The "leal'v increased prosperity that should"be experienced ere long in this province is Ultimately dependent on a, speedy sett! 3ment of our splendid hinterland The only complaint to he urged in connexion wih the proposals under review is that the notice given is exceedingly short, and many probable applicants are likely thereby to miss an opportunity fm which they may be anxiously await-,