THE OPENING OF THE LANDS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 351, 29 April 1874, Page 3

THE OPENING OF THE LANDS.

Is the Provincial Council really in earnest in the matter of the settlement of the people upon the kind? This is thequestion of questions, we take it, which the next few months will settle. A reference to the census returns renders it very evident that Otago is falling into that evil that seems to beset all Colonies j and is massing the people in centres instead j of scattering them everywhere throughout the country, to make two blades of grass grow where but one flourished before. We cannot conceal the fact that this most momentous question is assuming an importance which it never possessed before in any coun- | try. We are no alarmists. By a careful and farsighted policy, we believe that the present flush of prosperity may be made permanent — so husbanded as to remain when gome of the present moving-causes have disappeared—but such a future can be assured in one way only viz., by settling people upon the acres. Language altogether fails us when we wish to state this necessity in appropriately strong language. No Colony had' ever such an opportunity as we have now to develope its resource, agricultural and mineral. No Province was ever in a better position than Otago to effect this end. Are our Statesmen alive to the necessities of their , position, and willing, with a strong hand, to provide for the demands of bona fide occupants'; the story which comes to ua from the Mataura of three or four hundred men going to look at the land thrown open upon M'Nab's run, might read the dullest a plain lesson concerning the wants of the people. All the pettifogging attempts that have been made to prevent land being thrown open sink into insignificance — collapse like a punctured balloon — when pierced and confronted by plain facts. Land ! land ! land •! . The cry comes from the north, south,, and west. Not one hundred but two hundred thousand acres, we believe, should be thrown open upon deferred payments beforenext Christmas to satisfy the repeated and loudly expressed demand. Where lies the difficulty of the deed ? We are^u) advocates or f any interference with vested interests * but these interests become

a mere matter of finance, a mere question of compensation—they can, they must, be bought up at any expense rather than neglect the golden opportunity that lies ready to our hand.

There need be no difficulty in doing this just now ; the State coffers have not been so well replenished for many a long day. From all we hear, the Financial ' Statement next month will show a elate of things such as we have not known in Otago for some time past, if at all. Will no real statesman introduce a truly liberal Land Bill, to be ultimately laid before the Assembly, proposing a minimum of one hundred, and a maximum of two hundred thousand acres, as the amount to be thrown open during the next twelve months upon deferred payments. We promise him the hearty support and co-operation of every thoughtful man in the Province, and a tenure of political power exceeding in its duration anything that has yet been seen in the everchanging, fluctuating, and uncertain history of Provincial Executives. Perhaps no community has ever been more nearly unanimous in the desire to throw open land for bona fide settlement than our own just now. . Those who have always approved of Mr. .Vogel's scheme must assent, because it is the necessary and intended complement of the whole undertaking. Those who have always had ominous apprehensions about that scheme must approve, because it is the obvious and only way to fend off the consequences they have dreaded. The town desires it, because it has at length fully realised that the commercial prosperity of Dunedin is absolutely dependent | upon the number of thriving country settlers. ! Not a merchant, not a tradesman, not a workman in Dunedin does not gain a perceptible per centage of the earnings of every flourishing farmer. The country desires it, because by means of the deferred payments scheme alone can the outlying population be permanently increased, and an impetus be given to local centres.' The question is, will the Executive come to the Council with a proposition of a sufficiently liberal nature to command the assent of all ? We have great hopes that they will. Much that they have done during the past year has shown that they are by no means the worst friends to settlement we have had. We look to deeds, and not names or words. We trust that they now understand that the tentative but rightly intended measures of last year were good so far as they went, but that they will no more satisfy the country this year than the food they received as infants will satisfy grown men. With the increase in our numbers owing to immigration, and the increase in general prosperity, there has grown up a pronounced habit of looking on to a possible, we may Bay certain, time of trouble, and an intense desire, like prudent men, to insure ourselves against difficulties hereafter. If the time of reaction — which may come upon us from causes entirely beyond our control, such as a European war, or panic in the money market of London or Paris — finds us with a large floating population, and but a niwio handful proportionately of settled owners of land, tl»oi-o ->t-;n Vtet lamentation and trouble in Otago. — " Daily Times."