Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1892.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4253, 26 October 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1892.

SECOND EDITION

Being the extended title of the Waibabapa Daily, with which it is IDENTICAL

'he Government has taken to itself power to establish a practically unlimited area of special settlements, upon the conditions which it will itself impose, and this means that the eyes of all the blocks which may be available will be carefully picked out for men of the right colour, On this subject we have read with interest tho following letter written by a special settler who [has lived and worked amongst special settlers, and who understands as well as any man in New Zealand what special settlement means. The letter, we may add, was addressed to a Wellington contemporary, and is republished from its columns ; I notice special settlements are still being formed, especially cast of the Fukotoi ranges, The pretence alleged is that the settlers want land The common belief is that the laud is taken up by people who know nothing ot farming and would be sure to. fail. They mostly mean to sell out at a profit, If bo, would it not be better to sell the land in the upon market) I have seen some of the settlers names, and I know very well they could not go on the land. Would it be illegal to get tho names of iham and publish a list ? or still better, take an old special settlement such as the Woodrille-Tiraumea, and print a list of original sottlers, and then state how many are now in residence, and how many have sold out 1 If, aB 1 suppose, they are merely speculations, why not recognise the fact, and let us all have a shy at it? Most Pahiatua and Woodville residents are agreed that the WoodvillevTiraumoa speoial settlement is being bought up section by section by the capitalists whom the Government hate. If this is so, and each so-called special sottler only buys to hold and sell gotting a big honm, would it not be better for tho State to Bell direct to the capitalist, and so get £2 an acre instead of £ll It cornea to the' same thing in the end, Tho special settlers don't make such a ray thing of it as appears on paper, as all the machinations and delay necessary to defeat the provisions of the Act are couly, and absorb moat of the apparent profit, I am, to., W. F, HowLErr.

Onga Onga, Hawke'a Bay, 14th Oct. P.S.—Years ago 1 saw lists of the settlers in some settlements. They were thought a great joke locally. All sorts of publicans, chemists, lawyers, clerks, auctioneers; people who, we know perfectly well, could never get within oooee of the land even with a horse and a guide, Some had no money at all, some wero tied to lucrative businesses thy could not leave, Of courso you note that when tho settlement is finally "mopped up" by a capitalist, tho money spent on surveying it into sections and roading it is in groat part thrown away.-W.F.H.

• Special settlements are exoellent in theory, but in practice they are, have been, andwill be," Speculative Settlements." The Wairarapa teimswiib special speculative settlers, who have never been on their land and never will go on it. Some, it is true, have improved their sections up to a certain point, in order to rcalizo as large a profit as possible in the open market; but all the speculative settlers—a few no doubt perfidious conservatives, but the large majority true liberals—have dabbled in sections to take money out of the pockets of the Colony, and to put it into their own, It would, perhaps, be a low estimate to make, if we were to say that in the district north of Masterton, Special Speculative Sottlers have, made an aggregate profit of £50,000 out of the Colony by buying speoial settlement lands at a low price and selling them at a high one, Why should not this £50,000 have gone into the Colonial Treasury and have, been expended in roading and sur. veying? The answer is that the fads of successive Ministers of Lands and the attempt to conciliate large numbers of town and country residents by what ha?, after all, been ah indirect bribe has destroyed all honest administration, Tbjs Oolooylias. beem

robbed largely in the past is beini? robbed now and may be expected to be Btill'f further robbed, in the future. ,!i'lio hew Laud Act, like the old i que, jjovers. n; multitude of sins, and .conceals' all sorts.of iniquities which are thoroughly understood by ! men in power, For the soke of political support, the splendid estate with which the Colony is still endowed, is lo be further sacrificed to a horde of Special Settlement speculators.