VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1940, 7 September 1889, Page 3

VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

(Yeoman), The attempt, now manifest to discredit the Village Settlement system, is certain to recoil on the heads of the so-called Conservatives who seem to think that the occupation of the land by this class of settler is hostile to their interests. The facts and the figures show that the Village Settlers are holding their own, and we shall indicate “ the ways that are dark and tricks that are vain ” to disparage and bring them into disfavour. A large number of men applied at the Land Office for selections, but who never completed their contract by proceeding any further, who never went on the land at all, and who could not be termed settlers. In order to disparage the system, all these people are classed as settlers, with the result that a larger proportion of failures is shown than would otherwise be the case. This dishonest trick, though it serves a purpose, does not show failure but on the other hand a marked success. Then the Minister of Lands descended to a disgraceful trick by singling out a Maori who happened to to apply for a section— one Maori out of 900 settlers and exhibiting him as a fair sample of the kind of settlement that has taken place. The land taken up by the village settlers is estimated at the highest value, in order to make the payments represent a low rate of interest; while the cost of roads is actually charged against the settlements, though this is done in respect of no other class of settlers. Referring to roads: there has been, on an average for 15 years at least of L 60,000 a year spent on roads to open up lands for sale, while for three years there has been an average of L4OOO a year spent on the village Settlements, It will thus be seen the unfairness of the treatment meted out to this class of settlers. The hatred of the bulk of the Ministerial following to these people is unaccountable, unless we are to suppose that they recognise in all small settlers an element of danger to the big estates. And we believe there is something iu this conjecture. The Tories want to keep the rural districts safe, while they can jerrymander the towns in the Legislature. Thus they allege that the village settlers were planted in order to create votes. Votes then are things to be guarded against by the Conservative classes, who have made a strong and united attempt to work the oracle in their favor through organic changes in the constitution—Hare schemes, reduced members, &c, One great fact, however, remains—the village settlers remain on the land in spite of unjust treatment and neglect, and are exhibiting that tenacity of the soil which is so marked a characteristic of the German and French peasantry. _ If 900 settlers can hold their own against such odds, there is no reason why 100,000 village settlers may not be established on the land in the next twenty years. The problem is one of surpassing interest, but the people themselves must come forward and assist to solve it. The work already done shows what may be done in the future. The village settler will be one of the most potent factors in the political contests as well as in the social economical changes which time will bring forth.