SETTLERS V, SHEEP?

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 12, 2 May 1868, Page 3

SETTLERS V, SHEEP?

By Sam Jones. I am not a veiy profound politician, but am possessed of a good sturdy British sense of right and wrong. If our M.P.C.'s and M.H.R.'s, not forgetting the Superintendent, were desirous of doing what was right, Otago would be much better than it is. Fewer of our population would be thinking of leaving for other countries ; there would have been fewer follies of the Exhibition and Post-office stamp, and more roads and bridges ; we would have had more settlers and fewer sheep; no, probably more sheep, but fewer runholders. lam not by any means a runholding advocate, except in a very limited sense ; I don't believe in any man possessing one or two hundred thousand acres, lying as nature left it, not half stocked, and supporting probably not over a dozen persons. There is certainly a great proportion of land in Otago not suited for cultivation, but there are also a great number of men — miners, settlers, and others possessed of cattle, who would be most happy to pay the same rate as runholders for pasturing them. It would simplify matters exceedingly if every purchaser of land had the right of running cattle on the unsold land in his neighborhood. The Hundreds system provides fur this if only carried out ; big enough Hundreds, and plenty of them being declared as there ought to be, and will be, only there will be a pretty rumpus first in all likelihood. New Zealand's advantages as a place for settlement, have introduced a class who have attained great wealth and power, and whose interest it is to obstruct settlement. In the Northern States of America, Canada, and many other new countries, snow lies through the winter, and cattle have to be fed by hand, consequently though the pasturage may be good enough during the summer months, the necessity of providing winter feed puts a limit to the stock which a settler can keep. No one man being able to keep more in summer than he can provide food for in winter, there can be no pastoral class. Here a mild winter, a mild summer, and a well grassed country, make a fine pastoral, and when combined with land of average quality, as fine an agricultural country. When Otago was first settled, the Hundreds system was framed to meet the particular requirements of the case, and to give to all a participation in the great advantages which a temperate climate gives us. A block of land proclaimed a Hundred gives the purchaser within it the right of running cattle over all the unsold land. As comparatively little land was at first required as Hundreds, the remainder was leased as runs for fifteen years, at a merely nominal rent, the right, however, being reserved of proclaiming the land so leased into Hundreds, if required. The leasing system was the wisest that could have been adopted to turn the interior of the country to account. But what might have been expected has followed. The wealthier, better informed (cuter at all events) class, turned to runholding., Having more money, leisure, and may be talent than settlers, they naturally took the lead in Provincial politics, not only have they represented themselves in the Council and Assembly, but have generally been returned by settlers — a fact which Bpeaks volumes for the thickheadedness of that class. No person will dispute that settlement is against the interest of the runholder, therefore who could expect them to be really in earnest in trying to settle a population. Runs and a settled population could not exist together. They have cribbed the settlers as much as possible into the old Hundreds, refused to declare new ones, but sold all the refuse of the old at 10s. per acre, thus destroying the commonage, and perpetrating a glaring piece of injustice, men having bought land in the expectation that they would have a commonage until all within the Hundred had been sold at £1. Many thousand acres have been sold at 10s. which would not otherwise have been bought for many years. If, instead of selling the refuse of the old, new Hundreds had been opened, men who were forced to buy in the old would have bought in the new, and have got land that would have paid the working with, and have been able to run cattle. It would have been better for themselves, better for the Province, and better for the settlers whose commonage they bought. Now the Government are attempting, assisted by squatters, auctioneers, and Dunedin merchants, to destroy the Hundreds system altogether. If I was to express my mind as to the uniform policy that has been puraued, I would use some very strong language, but a plain statement is all that is requisite. As I said before I am not a very profound politician, but there is one of my ways of viewing the question that I would like to put before the public : — The unsold lands belong to the Government, the rulers for the time being who hold it in trust for the people. Surely the people are entitled to a share in their own property. I don't see why we should allow a knot of rnnholders, not even owners of land, to legislate for us, preventing the land from being settled, retaining it in their own hands, and crowding settlers in such narrow compass, they have not room to turn themselves. It is simply absurd. Nothing will settle land so soon as large Hundreds ; the right of running cattle would cause many a one buy land who would not otherwise do so, and besides the expediency of offering something to induce men to settle, I hold that so long as there is unsold land in the Province, men who invest money in freehold have the best right to the use of it.. It is at the present time just a toss up as to whether Otago goes backward or forward. If the present Government can retain office the sooner we all go to Fiji, Chili, or some other place, the'better. If the Otago land laws are rightly administered there is ro.om enough for thousands; as at present administered there is no j hope that any settler can gain more than the barest subsistence. It is a matter of almost life and death to every one (not a runholder), that liberal Hundreds be thrown opon, not small patches, but blocks of at least 100,000 acres. Many men in the Province thinking of leaving for other parts, would be induced to settle. Many men at home learning what could be done here would come out, the .influx of peoplo, and the steady spread of Bettlement r wo«ld:k^oj) money oirculatidg.