VILLAGE SETTLEMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2489, 31 December 1886, Page 2

VILLAGE SETTLEMENT.

--'- (From the Napier Telegraph),

Tho possession in.frcohol|>of tho least piece pf land bars a colonist of New Zealand;!rom acquiring: kuv portion of the waste lands oflljie' Crow n that. are being offered, Jpp which people are being begged under the exceptionally liberal advertised by the present Miftiatry. A working man r- who ownar.tho thirty sixth part of *n! acre in n town or suburb, :0"a : whichi. '_ per&i.ps he has built a cottage,,is:.not allowed to take upland on the nor can ho become a. "village settler," or.a tenant of-the l' r o*m urioW the perpetual leasing system.- If,he wants land he must go to the market and buy aa any other capitalist Miiuat do. Our liberal Minister of Lands only wants pauper's, or next door;to paupers, for Crown tenants, and to this end be is preaching ajl over tho colony on the advantages ,pf tliis '-class of "people taMng iip'larid oni jiis' system.'■ We can form no idea ot thej object' he has , in .view;ih hia wonderful fiissy anxiety to sjot people withontjinpney to enter life of slavery life thaL offers no hope.of rSwnrds. Wo can undoretand a policy that would encourage the ■ creation of a yeoman class \ that would ; offer ' itiducemenfc to men of some, small luaanis. upon suitable blocks of land 'wliieh. under time payments they ' could cenvert into freehold. But we do not understand j what advantage it can be to tho people tlienjselvejS. or to the Colony nt large for groups .iifi'penniless persons to "go upon land .which they are not allowed to own :pr. call their own. A glance at the history of settlement in ! any one of the'< English colonies will] show that the prosperity of individuals has been progressive, Starting in life . as a farm laborer, one for whom there j are so many enquiries—" tho wife to cook and the man. to make himself generally useful''-—what do we find 1 After a few years of saving up wages, this married couple will buy, under deferred payment, or straight out, piece of land that is commensurate with | their capital. A slab hut at first affords the family shelter, and in time this : gives place to a more roomy dwelling, j Then, os the family increases, and as settlement .springs",up around, land i becomes, by the aid of the earned and unearned, increment, of considerable value. Our small settler's farm becomes then too small for him> in view of pro- i vision for his children. fcJo he does tho sensible thing and sells out his forty acres or so, and with tho money he finds Jn a less populated district that he can buy two hundred, and then have plenty of money in band to mokea comfortable home. . Before old ago he ?may havo added to'his estate and settled his sons on farms of their own, and married off his' daughters to equally -sivfetan•tial settlors 'as - himself, \Ye can .point out settlers and settlements in .Hawkes Bay -that have . had their origin in. tho way wo have described. 'Now under the Honorable Mr Ballance's scheme there can be no such progressive results of industry. _ He would encoarago the married oouple to take up a paltry section' under tho village homestead system of perpetual leasehold,"and ho.would fuss and fiirne 'to get them to throw up their situation before they bad accumulated enough money to properly work the land, Onee on tho section they must stick there; they must not add to their small holding; in a word, they must remain poor, and uncomfortable, and dissatisfied. That we are not misinter ■ preting the Hon. Minister as to the ciass of pooplo ho wants to get an Crown tenants, Yfill here quote the report of hja addresses delivered afc Oamaru J— " The pillage settlements. waa especially the system for the working man, for, &g e, matte? 1 of fact, he coaM obtain under it oven \i he hat} qp money; or at least, even if he hMt] very little indeed. All other systems rendered tk&posessioa of soma capital necessary, but nnder the villag« "aottiement -se&eme & manecHsld obtain Uis bie.oi lm& by. bsliot, would b&m tof*3r )»ti&9g-fa> it ty &*&,fwt f

vmb, iqsail £& £|ai eab&'jMi tljs o»pmu valae of &» &£},-«!& -«otfMl obf&ti - fism CfsffgssmsQfe *l sis mm& •rata ©fisteraisfc-is'lMiild-B Irons© wife ' I* ▼*» to tbafc 'kiwi o£ &nd iaw;tbey--difficulty—& was kins! of system that the for' for*'prosper of Krfeg faippily swsii gettiag oh, *fg U vm to tmh cggo?-,, , tunitiei to the imw of tiw. jfsggris ,i&a£, '.the country, m kyrtitte, m 'V*&-. to lool£. for its greatest; collective and prosperity. As a wattei of'fack ia ; in less than three months 2§o families bad- iwn titled i» Auckland under the village 'setSlesasat system, and in Canterbury—whera laud -was so--difficult to get—seventy-seven, families -had been placed on the land in ihasflme feief. period," la other words, by trnmplsg up aa| utterly mistaken' tenure the Crowa hm secured as tenants* three hundred aad l twenty setfefl-pasper families. What; the future of theaa poor poor people win be we should be Sorry to guega, They have" not bean ou the land~to properly realise their present condition or future 'pragpeaUi. The chances are; that of thaai will abondoa thoir" hoidWga, rather | than submit to a' life of permatt'atit penuary and hard lbhor." If the system biuT been anffioieatly long it; force to pro*b its bucoobs the' Minssj3§? would be justified in speaking of it ~a£one "to which the mais&ea had' to look for a prospect of living happily," But, aa it happens, tho system has only just been invented, and there is no reason to snpposo that It will result in anything but disaatvoaa failure.