CLOSER SETTLEMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10223, 26 April 1911, Page 5

CLOSER SETTLEMENT.

ITo The Editor.} Sir, —In yur issue of to-day there h a. letter from Mr G. HrCullen on the subject of "Closer Settlement," and in view of his remarks and the revelations of the Census now in course of completion, it behoves the Wairarapa people to seriously consider the position. The people have permitted themselves to be lulled into a false sense of security because of what seemed to them to be an advance of trade and the development of the centres of the trade. But the Census shows that we have been living in a fool's paradise. Wealth has been accumulating, and men decaying. Let not disputants on social subjects worry over this or that set of figures while great and outstanding facts exist for their guidance. If the towns of Wairarapa have gone back in population (and" they have) what is the real cause? The answer is-: Because the rural J population has decreased and so many ] young men have gone aw r ay to districts > where land for settlement has been thrown epen. When the rural population remains at a standstill or decrease, the trade centres languish, business suffers, shops close, and dwelling houses remain empty. But, I hear someone say: "Only in two centres has the population decreased."' Is that how you reckon? What of the natural increase? What has become of it?. It has gone; both from town and country. The tendency in j old settled districts is towards de-1 crease. How then can the town j>ro- I gress? We have lost many hundreds of population in five years; we. are, I in the aggregate, some thousands I shprt! What is the cure? How can L we. stay the exMss ? CJojer settlement;, that is the panacea. There is no other way in which progress arid prosperity can be secured. Lam constrained to write this because of something that happened only a few nights ago on the Carrington Settle- r ment, near Carterton. I had been in- ■ vited to address a meeting of settlers | there. . The meeting was held in the i cheese factory —just newly established. Your readers will, perhaps, re-i member 1 hat when I succeeded (after .1 much trouble and no little opposi- I -tion) in getting the Government to purchase the Carrington property, there ! \yas much talk of the unsuitability of the land for closer settlement. That sort of talk has been indulged in with regard to every Government purchase. It was so in the, case of Langdale. Yet Langdalo was one of the best purchases in the whole Government list. And Carrington has been a success also. The meeting to which I have referred was held in the factory .erected by the new settlers. The scene, to me, was an inspiration. Here, where one shepherd used to form the sum total of the population of the Carrington run, was a new cheese fac- i tory. an assemblage of sunbrowned I men, their wives and some of their! children (babies included). What a * splendid lot of people, and what an advantage to the whole country-side. . And yet Carrington was but - "small potatoes" in land settlement, because of the circumscribed area. Given a. ■spirited policy of land purchase over the whole of Wairarapa, and resumption orta generous scale' for settlement purposes, and what a change! The six estates purchased during my six years' membership did some good —our condition in the towns would have been much worse than it h but for those new settlements. But what is needed is another series of re-pur-chases; earned out on a very mucb larger scale. Our young men are still continuing their outward flight. Here in Carterton, the females outnumber the males of our population. There are some areas of available ai«! suitable \and. Think of the splendhi stretches of eountiy. quite :i°ar to Mastertoi; also in the coastal districts ; in every valley , from the j Tararuas to the sea. Look north, . south, east and west, and you. Avill | find largo blocks of country suitable for close settlement. And what is being done to the end of obtaining thi? land for the men who are hungering I for farms? Nothing! Long since, the i Hawke's Bay people united for tlie | purpose of influencing public opinion on the land settlement Question. The result has been magnificent. Land monopoly still exists in Hawke's Bay, hut closer settlement where it has been obtained has worked wouders. We can say the same of the Wairarapa. But we need more and still more land for closer settlement purposes. Will the Wairarapa people unite for the advancement of their towns and districts? With the people themselves rests the answer. —I am, etc., J. T. M, HORNSBY. " "Ruruhau," Carterton, April 25th, • : 1911.