Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/141

 of unredeemed wilderness. They should not, of course, overdo it, and leave a man no scope for industry and initiative. They might, however, lay out the land, fence it, clear a sufficient amount for the first year's saving, and where the tenant's capital was limited, though his skill might be good, they might supply him with horses and plant, and even a certain amount of stock and seed, the total outlay to be repaid, with reasonable interest, on a basis easily calculable by deferred payments, coincident with the instalments of purchase-money. Of course, where the tenant had the needful capital, so much the better for himself, and he might then find it more to his benefit to take up the intervening Government land than to buy of the Company. But as regards this it must always be borne in mind that the Companies are the absolute owners of the soil, and can sell out and out with out any conditions whatever, whereas if the Government is dealt with the statutory conditions must be observed.

In regard to the colonisation scheme which I have outlined, it might be necessary for the Land Companies to form subsidiary companies after the Chaffey method in order to get the needful capital and powers; but this is, of course, a question for them­ selves. In any scheme of this kind great skill would be required in the laying out of the farms, as it should be the aim to give each tenant a due admixture of grain and fruit growing and grazing land. It certainly would not suit the Company to give the tenant a full holding of the best land, and it certainly would not suit the tenant to get nothing but the worst. In the calculation I have given as to the capital needed for working from 500 to 1,000 acres of land, I am, of course, taking the case of a man who means to go to work gradually, clearing and planting a little fresh land each year, and doing even his fencing by degrees. Of course, if he went in for putting the whole of his 1,000 acres under crop right off he would want probably a capital of £5,000 instead of £500, which is only compatible with very modest doings. Under a scheme of semi-prepared farms the advantage to the settler would be that instead of having to wait two seasons for a return he would get it in one. If he were wise he would arrive in February or March, plough