CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5057, 21 June 1895, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

Mr. WARD IN LONDON,

[to the editor.]

Sir—l have read with snrprise, some of the remarks of the Hon.'J. G. Ward to a Daily Chronicle representative, which were published by that journal in its issue of the 16th April last. To that representative, MrWard loudly extols the success which has attended the many experiments of his Governmtuit. Now, Sir, 1 have lived many years in a rough and muggy spot called the Forty-mile Bush, and have had many opportunities of observing how the land (?) is settled, and how the co-operative works have been conducted ; and, through the medium of your valuable columns, I should like to take exception to some of Mr Ward's statements regarding Land Settlement and Co-operative Works. First of all, 1 will deal with Mr Ward's remarks re the co-operative works, He says, after explaining how they get at their estimates, " It is so arranged that strong and weak are able to make average wages." This is quite true. I observed that all the gangs were composed of either strong, lusty men, or warn out debauches and decrepit imbeciles, There were two prices, one for each class of men/The strong young men, as a rule, got about half the price of the imbeciles, and were put into tho toughest jobs; but in spite of this they managed to wring from 15s to 25s per day out of the job for each and every day they worked, and that was seldom more than two or three days a week, on account of the interminable rain. The "duffers" sometimes did not mako more than £1 per week, but that was not the fault of the work or weather. It was not in them to make more. Had a gang of fair average workers been lucky enough to get some of their contracts, they would have made at the rate of £SO a year, only working one day a week. But what matter how they fared, as ninety per cent, of their earnings were banded across the hotel bar. I have seen scores of them swaggiug since. Mr Ward's remarks re the men working three days a week on tho road, and the remaining three days on their sections is uttor "bunkum." If such were the case tho men would

be doing nothing else but shift camp. And how would it act if heavy rain fell for a week ? Why, some of tho men's sections are twenty or thirty miles from the roads they are forming ; a good day's journey on a rough, muddy bush track. They would spend four days' a week travelling between their sections. and their work. And also the Government would have to employ an army of Inspectors to see that they carried out the stipulated weekly improvements on their sections. And as to the statement about reducing the co-operative works vAon farmers want men, and thereby regulating the labour market, is too absurd to need refutation. Now to the "Land Settlement Question," Mr Ward's remarks about the laud costing only £2 per acre to fell, measure and supervise, bum, grass, fence, build upon, etc., are I utterly incorrect. Take any of the Makuri or Puketoi land and see

what it costs. Tho upset price was from 30s to 38s 6d per acre to Btart with, the cost of obtaining provisions from Wellington cost £l7 per ton delivered on the section before tho road was formed. Meat cost 5d per lb. It cost £2los per acre to fell tho bush, felling everything. It cost 4s per acre to measure, supervise, and burn, and an execrably bad burn at that. It costs 18s per acre to buy, pack, the gross seed, It cost £1 per acre to fence, and an average of £2 per acre for buildings. Total cost, from £8 2s to £Blos 6d. And after all yoar outlay, trouble, labour, and anxiety, yon have a farm worth £A por acre, or less than half of what it cost. A farm that does not pay 2j per cont/on the expenditure, a farm that keeps three sheep to the

acre in summer, and if you hy to keep ono to the acre in the winter, half your sheep perish. This is the ( settlement of the bush land Mr , Ward so loudly extols, It is the greatest mistake in the world, for any _ person without capital, to imagine for a moment that he can take up bush land and work it profitably. At the present exorbitant prices the Government are demanding for their Crown Land, no man can expect to do well out of it unless he lms at his disposal at least £lO for every acre of land he takes up. The upset price of Grown Land, ought to be so little, that it should hardly pay for the purchaso by the Crown from the Maoris, and the cost of survey thoreof. No Government official should be paid out of tho proceeds of Crown Land sales. I consider the avarice of the Crown Lands Department in trying to wring the highest possible price out of selectors in order to enrich their department and increase their own ■ salaries-combined with the settlement of men with small means on the land which has been such a " disastrous failure as to amount to i nothing more or less than "coufisca- i tion of the hard-earned savings of J working-men "—has .led to the } downfall of our boasted land settle- \ ment,

To make settlement of land such as in the Puketois a siiccess,tho Government should not charge more than os per acre for limestone, and 3s for the papa formation. There should bo only two systems of selecting Crown Lands, viz,: freehold and leasehold, for a term of thirty years with a right of renewal and power to make freehold at any time during the term; and the lessee to pay 5 per cent, rental on the upset value of the same. The Government should survey the land themsolvesand bear tho cost thereof instead of charging it to the selectors. They should assist the settlers to mako their roads by subsidising £1 for £l, all the monies settlers borrow through their Local Bodies and thereby get roads constructed for half of what they cost under the co-opera-tive system, Compulsory residence should not be enforced until seven years after selection, or compulsory improvements until the selectors havo metalled road access to their sections No holdings should be less than 100 or more than 200 acres. And finally, all "Members of the Waste Land Boards" should be elected by the "Tenants of the Crown," and not appointed by the Government. —I am, etc., Makuri.