CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2467, 3 December 1886, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

THE SETTLEMENT SCHEMES OF MR BALLANCE. To THE EdITOB. Sib,—Your assertion in yesterday's isauo of the Daily that Mr Balance's settlement sohemes in our bush districts are beginning to indicate unmistakeable fiymptuina of failure, is, I think, not borne out by facts. lam inclined to regard your statement as a ohallenge to those interested in special aettlemeuts to show how far they have been asuccessupto the present time, and this I will endeavor to do, although a fairly sufficient period has not yet elapsed to enable nje to prove the permanenoy- or .otherwise of tie advantages arising from special settle* ments, I will refer more espeoially to the Pavkville Association (as 1 canipeajc with someauthority on that special settlemont), and your readers will be able to judge what the others are doing from what we have done. About eight months ago the Parkville block was allotted to us.. We immediately called for. tenders for survey, and had some fifteen to twenty-five men employed at survey work during the whole of the autumn and winter months. We lot a block at the beginning of the win ter of some 400 acres to have the bush felled. This provided employment for some fifty bushfallors. Thus wo have employed some siity-fivo bread-winners during the most months of the year, when had it not been for this employment many would have been idle. The Mas-torton-Maugahao Special Settlement Association lias also let a large bushfallfng contract and-we may fairly suppose that thoy omploy a similar number of men to that'employed by the Parkville Association. Thuß the two Masterton Associations have supported about 130 families; and when ws remember thore are some twelve Bpecialsettlementsin theFortyMilo Bush, each emulating the other in tho way of pushing ou preliminary work, you will admit that I am not over estimating the number when I say that fully 600 familio3 have been fed in tho Forty Mile Bush during the past winter by special settlements formed by Mr Balance's now land regulations, I will say nothing about the aduantages accruing to the colony generally through the increased Bottlemont and population, but 1 think, sir, 1 have proved that up to tho present these Bpeoial settlements have been the means of feeding thousands of hungry mouths, many of which, had it not been for special settlements, would have gravitated to Napier and Wellington, thereto swell the ranks of unemployed instead of being provided for profitably insubduing the wilderness. 1 assert that it is entirely owing to special settlements that so little destitution was experienced last winter in this district, and that Air Balance's special settlement schemes have resulted in feeding thousands of deserving porsous during a period when the clouds of depression had thrown their dark shadows over the colony. • I am, etc., O. M. Pin,