Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1895, EVICTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5209, 17 December 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1895, EVICTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

The work of "eviction" is at the present time proceeding quietly in this Colony and district, The Government does not like to admit that it is turning settlers off their land, and tlio steps taken arc not wont to he recorded in the public press. We look in vain to the reports of the Wellington Waste Lands Board, which appear in tho City papers, for a report of the eyictions of an evicting Administration, but things arc so arranged that they not allowed to appear. Tho Land Hoard is, in a measure, a secret Department, working mole-like underground, and getting rid of nndesirablo tenants in such a way that nobody—least of all, the Opposition —shall know much about it. We will illustrate what wo are saying, by a reforcncoto the Reform Special Settlement, an organisation which bad its birth in Masterton, anil which, is now in a very bad way. Originally, this Association consisted of fifty members, but fen of them not taking up their land, it came down to forty, And now we hear the forty have been reduced, by tho Land Board, to twenty; and soon the twenty are likely to, bo brought down to ten, Aj| Association of Ijfty settlers, on a picked block, has practically to come down to ten j on a'|i inferior blopk, it probably has to descend torn'/. It is said that tliore havo been about twenty evictions, recently, on the Masterton lieform Block; Tho Department has been doing good by stealth, and blushes to find it fame. Settlers in the Association have received mi official notice, which begins" I hereby give you notice, that tho Land Board has declared your right, title, and interest in the Asso,ciation ( to be cancelledbut in yain do we tookfor thepancellntions in the Waste Lands rep,oris. But there is a postscript to these notices, in prominent type, which reads as follows I- 11 If, JIOWEVEII, you PAY THE AKIIEAKS THIS MOUTH, T||K CANCELLATION WILL lIK RESCINDED," ft would puz/.10 a Philadelphia lawyer to determine whether the cancellations qualified by the condition referred to, iiro logal and binding,. Tho Government is quite right in insisting upon rents being paid, but it should not adopt secret methods of. procedure, in order to conceal from tho jjpbljp, the lamentable fact that fourfiftlMflf ity Jap.d settlement, is of a ;duijiiny kind, and tj/aj; wlien it (masts of. thenumDerofpeoplewhom it; has piacpf} on tbg soil, jthe' public, to get somewhere near &b§

must divide tlio official return, by the figure five. The Minister of Lauds is taking a proper course in evicting tenants who won't pay their dues, but the the thing might as well be done openly and above-board,