SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9188, 10 September 1908, Page 4

SETTLEMENT IN THE NORTH.

A prominent settler in the Waikato district has recently been visiting various parts of the Auckland province, and hi." trip through tne country has convinced him more than ever that this is a land of great natural resources. "Very soon," he says, "the tide of settlement in Auckland will open the eyes of people from end to end of the Dominion. It is five years since 1 had a good look round the province, and I was more than astonished at the concrete evidences of prosperity and progress I found on every hand. Where I remembered bush there are now homesteads scattered through delightful valleys; where I saw before wide tracts of unsettled country I found scores of farmhouses; and where I could ride t.verity miles without seeing a soul, five years ago, I saw two busy dairy factories the other day. But more than all things the one great fact stood out that the Crown will have to withdraw its surveyors from isolated parts, where poor second-class country is being opened in miserably small sections, and crowd them on to the bf-.tter class Crown land with all possible haste. Settlement policy! why the Lands Department is only tinkering with the question here, and its policy of opening up the worst lands on' the optional system and good lands on the renewable lease, is an insult to residents of the country."