AS OTHERS SEE US.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2062, 21 June 1890, Page 3

AS OTHERS SEE US.

Mr C. Jessep has just returned from a visit to the Geraldine district, where he has been in search of land on which to settle with his family. He says that South Canterbury is greatly ahead of North Otago in point of settlement, and that he could not, after seeing the difference between these two parts of the colony, feel contented to make a new home here. He says that this district reminds him of an opossum rug with a fringe of rabbit skins—the large estates, with a number of beggarly settlers around them eking out an existance. The reverse is the case in Geraldine and other parts of South Canterbury, where there is a large number of small and thriving settlers. In his opinion, Oamaru is a very beautiful town, possessing many natural advantages, but Timaru has the still greater advantage of being the entrepot of a populous back country. Mr Jessep would gladly have remained in this district, which has been bis home for so many years, and in which his children were born, but he is being driven out of it by the impossibility of getting land at any thing like a price that would enable him to make a living. He bad hoped to get a piece of the Station Peak property, but so small a portion of that property is to be disposed of, and it is being administered in such a way that there is no hope that he would be successful in carrying his wish into effect. The already too numerous army of persons who intend to compete against each other for one one of the few areas being doled out by the Government with a niggardly hand, will therefore be relieved of one competitor, Mr Jessep is very sore about the advantages that capitalists will have in connection with the disposal of the land that will be open for competition on the 24th of this month. He points out that the runholders in the vecinity can purchase these lands without any obligation to settle upon them, and that they may be purchased by speculators with a view to making a profit out of their investments. There is, he adds, nothing in theabsence of settlement and improvement condition to prevent these people from mopping up the whole lot by the use of dummies, and thus shutting out the legitimate settlers, who would have to wait for a still further period for the consummation of his desire to get a plot of land to save him from the necessity of either starving or leaving the country. Mr Jessep is evidently not in love with the land policy of the present Government; but, then, Mr Jessep is not oae of the class for whom that policy was designed.