The Westport Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1874.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1186, 26 June 1874, Page 2

The Westport Times. FRIDAY, JUNE 26, 1874.

In our last issue a correspondent drew attention to the different treatment received by " old chums and new chums" at the hands of the General Government. He showed that while those who have by many years of hard struggling advanced the work of colonization, are neglected and left to their own devices or good fortune to secure homes in the land of their adoption, new arrivals, brought out at the expense of New Zealand taxpayers, are petted and made much of, supplied with habitations, ensured work for a definite period, and given facilities for obtaining land which " old chums" are not permitted to share in. He instanced the operations on the Fielding settlement in Wellington province, and contrasted the prospects of the settlers there located to those of miners and others, who, after living many years on the goldfields, can obtain no land for freehold occupation except at an almost prohibitive price, or by migrating into distant districts. There was much weight in the argument, although our correspondent appeared unaware that the special attractions of the Fielding settlement are exceptional, and set forth by a commercial association, calculating on making profit by the speedy settlement of a large estate purchased from Government, and that the governmental guarantee of work for the new immit grants is a special condition of contract. Yet there is no good and sufficient reason why the advantages granted in this particular instance should not be open to all bona fide settlers, whether new arrivals in the colony or old residents, and there is very little doubt that combined action, bringing judicious pressure to bear, at the next sitting of the New Zealand Parliament, would accomplish this result. We call attention to certain action already taken on the Thames goldfields as worthy of imitation in other localities. Certain residents sojourning in the Thames district are desirous of forming a special agricultural settlement. They comprise fifteen families, numbering some eighty persons. They have offered the Superintendent of the province a substantial guarantee that for every 500 acres, allotted them on a system of deferred payments, they will spend £IOOO in the course of two years. Asking in fact that, although residing in the colony, they should be treated with the same consideration shown to immigrants arriving here by Government assistance. They ask that a block of 10,000 acres shall be set apart for them upon which to form a settlement, and they are wise enough to know that no farm of less than 500 acres will be sufficient for each family. The applicants are miners who have saved a little money, and wish to remain in the country. The Superintendent of Auckland promised that if definite written proposals were submitted such would receive favorable consideration, and explained that although the " Homestead Act, 1870" gave tho power of making grants of land on condition of bona fide occupation, yet the act was practically inoperative, because the stipulated trigonometrical surveys of land had not been made. He promised that he would endeavour, during the next session of the General Assembly, with the assistance of his ■council, to have regulations, enabling him to deal with such applications, embodied in the form of statute. Some such action is needed in this province, and it would be well for those who are really desirous of settling permanently on their own land to follow the example of the Thames miners. Such action would be a test of the earnestness of the cry of " land for the people and people for the land." It would test also the administrative efficiency of the Provincial Government, and the earnestness of its professed intent to advance the true interests of the province.