Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1893. "WILD GOATS."

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4503, 22 August 1893, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1893. "WILD GOATS."

SECOND EDITION

The fertility of a million aores of cleared land in the Wairarapa depends very maoh'.'on a few score thousand of rough, scrub covered, precipices on the Tararua Ranges, From a climatio and productive standpoint the condition of the principal. watershed of the district is of colonial importance and when wo find the Minister of Lands putting fifty or sixty thousand acres of this watershed into the market we are compelled. to ask the question whether hisnolionis likely to 'prove a curse or a blessing to the community. It will be noticed that the land under offer to the public ia Alpine in its elevation, exceedingly rough; and quite inaccessible to any made road. To bring it into grass will require a considerable expenditure and no one but a capitalist can take it up with the slightest prospect of doing any good with it. It is inferior, inaccessible land which is altogether unfit for occupation by a poor man. Why then is the Minister of Lands putting it in the market? Is lie offering it for the benefit of capitalists, or be is selling it because the Government are hard up for the* money. We do not believe that either of these is the true explanation of tho affair. The" wild goats," for whom these high hills are to be a refuge, are evidently the Special Settlement Associations which are pester* ingtbe Government for blooks of laud, The children are demanding bread and are getting a stone with a vengeance. We believe these Special Settlement " wild goats" are mad enough to take anything in the shape of land at the present time, and the Government are disboneßt enough to give it to tbem, The Minister of Lands is taking the water shed of the Wairarapa and offering it in precipitous blocks' to these" wild goats" and though ten thousand land owners in this district are injured by the' transaction not one seems disposed to lwe his voice against it. We, ourselves, would not question it, if there were a reasonable prospect of the" wild goats" making a living out of the rocky heights of the Tararuns. There can. be no successful settlement for another generation on the rough upper ridges and oragey spurs of these ranges and by that time Ministers may possess sufficient common sense to recognise that such settlement would be deafly purchased at the cost of a valuable watershed. Even Liberal politicians, followers of the party in power, are beginning to make little jokes about the" wildgoats" of theSpeoial Settlement Associations, who clutph eagerly at anything in {he way of an, eyry. Give one of these H wildgoats" a perpetual lease of fifty or' a hundred acres of rocky preoipice, ten miles from anywhere, and he is happy and contented, looking forward to the time when the Government will build him a cottage on it, give him a road to it, pay him for clearing it, help him to buy stock for it, and find him in hanfly cfl-opetative employment till bis section proves reproductive. There is a lot ol this" wild goat" madness prevalent in the Colony. Of course the Government know all about it and encourage it to a certain extent, and this is the reason," we believe,.why the watershed of this fertile district is now being sacrificed.