LAND FOR THE PEOPLE THE CROWNING SWINDLE

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 190, 5 October 1871, Page 5

LAND FOR THE PEOPLE THE CROWNING SWINDLE

(To the Editor.)

Sir, — T don't often write to tho. newspapers, but in reference to tins latest nefarious job of squandering the waste lands of the colony-— I refer to the Moa Flat transaction— l cannot help asking you to place on record an oft-expressed opinion of untie, that it serves the Mount Benger people right — it ia tlie proper reward of their miserable pusillanimity-— their unman ly servility — their utter want of spirit—and the futile rage and indignation now so freely expressed on every side might well have been spared had they exercised their rights as freemen in time, and in a rational manner.

My advice to the people of Mount Beuger ia — meekly bear this dispensation of the Provincial Grovernment ; don't; make wry faces in swallowing the pill — for are not our. rulers men of spotless honour and integrity, whose verbal promises areas inviolable as New Zealand bonds duly stamped? Do not magnify yout mole-bill grievance into a mountain, but take a broad cosmopolitan view of matters, and you may yet live to .lease farms and receive many other benefits from Clarke, Lord of the Manor, if you behave becomingly as befits your humble condition in life. — I am, &c,

TJeiah Heep. Moa Flat, Sept. 30, IS7I.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, — In the . face of the most earnest 'remonstrances from the inhababitants, and repeated warnings of the disastrous results that would ensue to this district, it is new announced that Mr. W. v J. Clarke, ' by the intervention of his banker, Mr. Larnach has made arrangements with the liberal Government of the province of Otago to secure against settlement for all time to come a run comprising some of the finest agricultural land in ' the Colony. Tbe statement when first announced here was received with incredulity, but further enquiry only tended to confirm the truth of this the most infamous squandening of the public estate that has ever been perpetrated. It had been pointed out repeatedly, both in your own columns and in the D-unedin press, that by purchasing a few hundred acras, judiciously chosen, the squatiera iv the neighbourhood could as effectually . secure the permauent possession of their runs, and so frustrate settlement as if they had acquired them as free simple ; that the welfare of this district, nay, almost its existence, demanded that the peculiarly situated areas of available agricultural land should be carefully allocated with a ■ view to' obtain the best- possible results iv respect of -aettlemeufc. Promises were made by the Government that the interests of- the inhabitants would be carefully considered ; blrc'tß of land were surveyed \witb the intention of throwing then ©pen immediately. — Notwithstanding the infamous Island Block transaction ; disregarding, the strenuously urged withes of intending settlers, and as if to tnark-'.hpw utterly and contemptuously "they ignored the welfare of people' who had intended making tfie couufcrytbeir permanent homes, tin's time-serving Government have now crowned their unworthy and infamous conduct by this moat unprincipled and nuicidal act. It ia high time that aouie who

have shewn themselves so disgracefully incapable of administering the public estate should be kicked out of places of trust for which they are manifestly so unsnited. " What can you expect," I heard it remarked tho other day, " what can you expect of a Waste Lands Board, some of whose members are interested in the couutry to the extent oF, say, a seat at the Waste Lands Board ? "

If it were not saddening it would be amusing to record the change of opinion of persons erewhile obnoxious to the sale of the Island Block and also of this latest " transaction " and the occult manuer in which those ! changes were effected. We can all j remember how one doughty champion of the " people's cause," after well nigh raising in the breasts of some a feeling that if maintained would culminate in a revolution, quietly, subsided after a brief bub mysterious interview with a principal ; and lam sorry to say there is a more recent case of defection from the ranks in a quarter . from which desertion was little to be apprehended, and which is a source of suprise and regret to all. It would occupy too much of your space to particularise the various sweetening influences at work. Suffice it to say that two or three individuals whose sudden changes of opinion on a matter of notority throughout the district can row say, Jna sonse slightly different from that intended by the poet,

" Sweet are the uses of adversity," The upshot of this flagrant sacrifice of the public land will be, that those who van do so will clear out to countries where there is a prospect of more profitable occupation, leaving behiud them a few capitalists and a few others who coald not possibly, realise their properties preparatory to quitting the heaviest taxed and most debt-ridden country in the world. — I

am, &c, X. N. Z Mount Benger, 30th Sept., 1871.