KAPUA SETTLEMENT.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 276, 30 October 1902, Page 3

KAPUA SETTLEMENT.

TO THE EDITOR. Sik,—We, as settlers of this settlement, have been agitating for some time for some rebate or concession for our yearly losses by the floods. It is impossible for us to save our white crops. We have tried for several years to put the swamp down in crass, so as to make grazing lmd of it. We have even failed in this, as the floods either rot the grass seeds or take away soil and everything. Our member has up to the present been unable to do anything for us. We hare a bottle necked drain for the purpose of drafhing our land, which is both too shallow and far too narrow for the vo'.uma of water it haß to contend with. The Engineer reported to Mr Steward that it would co3t £IOOO to £ISOO to effect a drainage. Now, we maintain that whatever it cost it ig a work of necessity and ought to be done, as the land is useless without it. And, ye gods! would you credit it, Mr Steward told them that £2G was all he could get to clean out the drain wUh, bat no compensation for our lesses. The Commissioners of Crown Lands called today, and they appear to me to be a worsa specimen of landlords than any you will find in Ould Oirland. They are of no assistance to the tenant. We have an army of Land Board officials to keep, all of which could very well be dispensed with for any use they are to us. One had the audacity to tell & settler " that if he could not maintain himself upon the land he must keep, ducks." If this is the way the settler is to be snubbed and insulted and robbed, the less people have to do with Government land the better.—l am, etc., Jcstice.