OUR LAND SCHEMES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1981, 19 March 1885, Page 3

OUR LAND SCHEMES.

TO THE EDITOR. We are perpetually hearing of some new scheme for settling the people on the land, and bunging the wildeme-is under cultivation. Almost every (internment when it enters office promulgates .some new idea. A scheme for pioinnting settlement is ai indispensable to a iniiiisteiial statement now a-d.iy-s as wind to a mouth Itai iimiuu.i. I believe there are sevtral schemes in foice throughout the colony at the presont timo, each one embodying a diffeient or special puncipleof its own. There is the perpetual leasing system, the freehold system, the defeired payment system, the homestead system, the small company system, and tho Armed Constabuluy system. The two latter emanated from the fertile and proveibially theoretical mind of the Hon. John Ballance. In othei p.nts of the colony all tht'sp (Jov eminent systems of settlement may have been attended with more or less success, but it is quite cv ident that in this district their operation can hardly be baid to have been felt. In the Raglan district the homestead system after the lapse of several veais of h.udship, stinggle, and perseverance is now beginning to hear fruit, but only on a very limited scale. Wo are .ill pretty well acquainted with tho misery and hardship with which the deferred payment settlers at Waitoa have had to contend. In a sen-<e thu\ have succeeded in establishing their homos, but it is a well known fact that had it not been that there was plenty of outt-ide work available, such as road making and contracting on big estates, they would have been obliged to have abandoned their holdings long .since. The difficulties with which they had to contend were aim »t insurmountable. The perpetual leasing system is said to be working vt>ry well in Canterbury and on the Went Coast of the North Inland, but ns yet we have had no e\peri ence of it in this quartet . The scheme w ith which wo have now to cultivate an acquaintance is Mr Ballance's special settlement scheme, said to have been de-igiied spceij ally in view of the opening up of the King ! country by the trunk railway for the settlement of "the land along the line. The scheme is very comprehensive, but we are afraid :t: t looks much better on paper than it will prove in practice. To ensure any measure of buccos* a surplus population, pos se*sed of moderate cipit.il, on the look out for land or desirous of settling in the conn try is necessary. At present the province boasts of a very "light surplus population indeed, particularly of the class re fened to. Ceitatnly, the city of Aucklan boasts of a surplus population composed of that very de-nable class known as the unemployed, who, like their great arch-champion, Mr Gariard, prefer being looked upon as ill-uned state pensioners than men anxious to earn their biead by honest toil. And in the country how many suitable men are there available to undertake the settlement of our waste lands after the fashion indicated by Mr Ballance ! If the scheme is to bo given effect to, if it is to l>e attended with anything like success, it will have to be carried out in conjunction with some system of ttnmigiation. And the immigrants will have to be .specially selected, for immigration on the pi maple hitherto adopted would m no wav materi ally assist the undertaking. The small companies or associations th tt Mi Ballance speaks of would have to be foimed in the old country, agents being .specially appointed to promote the work and organise the associations. The membeis could then be brought out to the colony fiee or on the assisted principle. Clearl\, if Mr Ballance is to succeed, some such principle must be adopted. But it seem" that while successive Government* are endeavouiing to promote settlement with one hand, they aie doing their best to impede it on tho other. Befoie tho introduction of tho present unnecessary, complicated and absurd laws dealing with native lands, settlement proceeded on a flourishing scale, and in almost eveiy corner of the distnct wheie waste lands were available capital was being spent in improvements, the land was being rapidly brought under cultivation, and everything and everybody seemed to thrive with unwonted vigour. But now settlement operations are hampered, the investing of capital in opening up new countiy is .surrounded with lostrictions and danger* of a character which no person cares to encounter, and so everything has been brought to a stand still. There cm be no settlement scheme more successful than that which is the spontaneous outcome of favourable circumstances, and it is just thu class that our legislators havo for some years been working bo industriousiy to stifle. — I am, &c. PUO(.KL>>3.