VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 3628, 20 June 1887, Page 2

VILLAGE SETTLEMENTS.

(To the Editor,) . •In your isaue of Saturday last I noticed that you had a leading article headed •' Village Settlements."---In as few words, as possiblel- will try aad explain my opinion about those Village'" Settlements, taking the Pahiatua; one' as an example. I here quote some of ! your own wordsinthe latter'partofyour article. You Bay- that" some of the , early settlers, faced sitnilar privations, but were picked;*, and in most, instances unencumbered with wives and children.";'• Hake exception to this. I knew a settlement some nearly thirty years since ; -in.>th© Wairarapa, where a. very large portion of four ship • loads of emigrants were settled upoa ten acre of land each, all bush. Within about twelve-months afterltheir arrival in the colony, »en

oil parts of England—laborers, tinkers, .. Bailors, soldiers, and sailors-arrived ~ a more unlikely lot of settlors for a bush country you could hardly have chosen. These men had no money ■ advanced to them to fall their bush, clear, and build, they had no wealthy ' 'squatters to employ them, they had to make their own. homes .with, their own • where', they ' could ftt .ss. per day, and pay 80s per flour, or cmp in "their owii bit t)f wheat in the .bush, refip it, V 'a'nd'grmd jt in aliandmill.. .'They had -■ fesd th'eir f{imilies, ; for mark you most' ofHhese'settlers had fntniiies, and toJ ' daylMintain tfiat••?s.perlcent.of • these settleVs with-their families are ■ .■ by far in a better, position in life, than they would have been in. the old • country. Taking this.settlement as ■ an example,, you may mite against th'eschemo till Dooms-day, and then not prove anything against it; the ■ • Pahiatua Settlement, being formed under exceptional circumstances, the settlers have good land, and monoy lent them to improvo, build, etc,, and a fair prospect of work on the rail-

way and! roads—roads that must be made to open up tons of thousands oi ficros of tho finest Crown Lands. I do not supposo any of these settlers /• -have much spare cash, but by eeono- : raising they will bo able to livo much / bettor than tliey could in towns, They'lmve a bouse, and, as you say, plenty of wood and water; they can, and ml]; I have no doubt, in a very Bhort' time, grow a great proportion of their own food. They will » ,have i to go away from homo 1 for omployment to get a little ready cash, and they will have to livo hard for a time, aa did the earlier settlers of whom I made mention of, thirty ■ years ago. I say, . Sir. that those who are spared to see Pahiatua Village . Settlement thirty years hence, will see a prosperous, settlement and a thriving population without tho aid •of 5,000 acromen beside them. < ■ ; • lam, etc., . ■ ; Job Vile. .