SETTLING A MILLION ACRES

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2645, 29 October 1909, Page 2

SETTLING A MILLION ACRES

WHAT IT MEANS. WEALTH AND POPULATION. Does the public of New Zealand realise what it would mean if the Government would throw open to settlement a million acres of our unoccupied land? There are at the present time over 11,000,000 acres of idle country in the North Island alone, says the "New Zealand Herald,” The bulk of this area is in the Auckland province. Auckland has within its provincial boundaries a. total of ever 14,000,000 acres, and, according to tho Official Year Book, only 6,547,150 acres are occupied under all forms of -tenure, thus leaving an area- of 7,000,000 acres unoccupied, unpopulated, and unproductive. . Let us see wliat could be done if a million acres, or one-tenth of " this area, were settled by men cif our own race, under, the optional system, in moderate-sized farms. We could easily pick a million acres which when grassed woul- carry a million and a-lialf sheep. Sheepfarming probably gives the very lowest returns of .any classs of agriculture; yet, estimating the yield on the average obtained from moderate-sized llocks, this would mean a . revenue of over a million pounds sterling a year. Turn this million acres into dairy farms, properly grassed and properly stocked with good cows. A million acres could be selected which would easily carry a daily cow to three acres ; but, even allowing foy a carrying capacity of 300,000 cows only, they should yield over £3,500,000 in a 10month season.

Allowing 1000 acres for each farm, this would mean 1000 new farms, which would carry, at a moderate estimation, 10,000 people under sheep-farming. Under dairying the land would be more thickly populated. Two hundred acres for each farm would mean 5000 farms, and as each farm should carry at least seven people, it would mean a total population on tho million acres of 35,000 people. The settlement of land means something more than the farm population it would carry. If 10,000 people were engaged on this newly-settled million acres it would mean at least another 10,000 people in our cities and towns, or a total increase of 20,000 people, under .the closer settlement required by dairying the total increase to the population of the country would be 70,000 jieople. ■ No man can settle on the land and produce wealth' from the soil without greatly benefiting his fellows. Tlic farmer is the national income-earner, and on him depends the internal as well as the external trade of the country ; but the farmer cannot live for himself alone, and his fellow workers in the cities, who produce his boots and his clothes, who handle his produce and supply him with manufactured goods, share in the results of his industry. The Government statistician estimates the trade per head of New Zealand’s oopulation, including- specie, as between £35 and £39 per annum. On tins basis the settlement of a million acres of our idle land On a close system, say, as dairy farms, would with the resultant increase of 70,000 people lift our annual trade returns by no less than £2,580,000 yearly. Surely a gain worth working for. Increased population, increased production. and increased trade are not the only desirable things which follow on increased land settlement. The nation is made stronger against assault, its finances are put on a sounder basis, its railways and other public works yield greater revenues, its national debt is reduced per capita, its local markets are increased, and its manufacturing industries stimulated. One would think that such important .advantages as these would be sufficient to encourage every politician in the country to exert himself to the utmost to place settlers upon our waste lands. We have, according to Government statistics, over 26,000,000 acres of land in the Dominion at present lying idle, and out of this area barely a million acres are considered unsuitable for settlement. We have shown what can be done with one million acres, and although we cannot expect that the whole area will yield anything like the same proportion as .a million acres of the best land, yet it must be readily acknowledged that the 20 odd million acres of country which now lies idle, and which hampers and restricts the returns of our occupied lands, which increases the cost of working our railways and of maintaining our roads, possesses immense potentialities. We may not be able to depend upon the whole area yielding as much per acre as the present occupied area under present conditions of farming, hut there is absolutely no doubt that under improved methods our unoccupied lands would produce as much wealth as the whole area now being held/ and the settlement of this idle land would double our population and our wealth production. The total' trade of New Zealand, excluding specie, lor the year 1908 was £33,332,367. The settlement of that waste lands would lift it to fully £60,000,000 per year. The capital value of our occupied lands with improvements in 1908 was £253,440,172, and though it cannot be expected that the value of newly-set-tled country would equal that which has been occupied for many years, yet it may reasonably be expected that the occupation of the waste lands with the consequent increase in population would so increase the value of the occupied holdings that our national property might easily reach the total of £400,000,000. There is more than a corresponding increase to be expected in the population, because when .a nation begins to count its people by the million instead of by the thousand, industries, spring up which, with, a scanty population, ar e impossible, and the increase in primary production always means a great advance in manufacturing, and as local markets expand the returns from the land increase, because increased population necessarily, means closer settlement and more intense cultivation. .ttMW.-cr'.-