THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1912. LAND SETTLEMENT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10588, 20 March 1912, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1912. LAND SETTLEMENT.

In the precious document .placed in the hands of His Excellency the Governor a few- weeks back, and disingenuously described as a "Governor's Speech," .special reference was made to what the Government (meaning the Ward Government) intended doing in the way of settling the land. As, however, tho Ward Administration is voluntarily going out of office to-mor-row, none of the promises contained in that remarkable document will be binding upon the makeshift Government which .will be called upon to succeed it. In the meantime, however, it is interesting to note how the discredited Administration has been performing the task of settling the land. At the time of -writing, a block of land is being opened eastward of the Main Trunk line, from Otorohanga. According to the Auckland Herald, the land is excellent, the sections suitable in size, and the land is being offered under the optional system. But against these advantages is the fact that the block is from thirty to thir-ty-five miles from the railway, and only a little over twenty miles of this

distance is roaded ; the rest of the distance has to bo covered by a rough pack-horse track. "It is bad enough, (says the Herald), for the Government to open land so far from a railway without providing a road for tho -whole distance, but the worst feature about the matter is the fact that between the railway and the land offered for settlement, there is a continuous stretch of unoccupied Native and Grown land, all of it well adapted for settlement, and most of it within easy distance, of the railway." One may be excused for asking why, in the name cf common-sense, this land is not made available for settlement before the back-blocks are exploited? The Government has been pursuing a topsy-turvey system all through the piece. It has sent men and iwomen I out into the recesses of the forest, to carve out for themselves the coveted home, under conditions which are almost heart-breaking. They have promised roads and bridges which have ; never come, and many a score of men '■ and women, driven to desperation, have had <to forfeit, their selections after months and years of anxious and fruitless waiting. The tragedies, of back-blocks life in New Zealand would, if written, form a dark page in the history of this earthly Paradise. And yet the (Government, heedless of the past, is going on to repeat those mistakes which have borne such terrible consequences to the deluded settlers. There is little wonder, when facts such as those recited above are given the light of publicity, that the people of the north have revolted against an Administration whose lack of knowledge of the requirements of the country is responsible for such a state of things.