DEVELOPING THE COUNTRY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2716, 22 January 1910, Page 4

DEVELOPING THE COUNTRY.

The "New Zealand Herald,” in commenting on the successful results of the recent wool sales and the effect on the country as a whole, seizes the occasion to again urge on the Government the necessity for pushing on land settlement. Every acre of land which can he brought into occupation and made to carry either sheep or cattle, it points out, now brings money into the country. We must once more repeat our amazement that any Government should be so inept as to block and retard laud settlement, which under intelligent administration would be made easy by high prices and certain markets. Is the r: taihoa” policy to linger along until an ebb comes in the flood-tide of agricultural prosperity, and now eager applicants for land hesitate +o embark on what may easily become a less tempting enterprise? This aspect of our public affairs cannot he emphasised too often, nor too ‘forcibly. Particularly does it apply to this district, which is being hampered to an exceptional degree by the neglect c.f the Government to open up the Native lands. If the lands in the Waiapu district and in the vicinity of the Bay of Plenty were made available for close settlement this part of the country would simply "boom” in a way that even the most sanguine can scarcely anticipate. Then the rest of the Dominion which gives us little heed iust now would realise that the far away East Coast had at last come into its own. and that the balance of wealth and prosperity had been materially shifted in this direction. But—the "tailioa” policy of the Government blocks the way. When the Native Minister outlined the provisions of his last Land Bill he predicted a change from the old "standpat” policy to one of action leading to settlement. Well, he has h.s Bill passed, now is the time for him to "make good” as the. America 11s aptly express such a situation.