LAND SETTLEMENT SCHEMES.

Press, Volume XXXII, Issue 4416, 25 September 1879, Page 3

LAND SETTLEMENT SCHEMES.

C New Zealand Times."] The history of the march of colonisation in America and Canada all tends to show that, as a rule, the first settlers upon virgin land are little better than robbers of the fertility of the virgin sotL The socalled farming of new settlers in a colony generally consists in scourging the land with a succession of grain crops until the soil is brought down to such a low level of productiveness that it no longer pays to cultivate it If any scheme can be devised by which suit, able Crown land shall be sold on deferred payments to farmers in moderate-sized blocks, with stringent improvement and residential clauses, we shall be prepared to support it to the best of our ability. What is wanted is a cultivator of the land, who is prepared to husband its resources — a man who knows that land to be farmed must be treated generously; that for every bushel of wheat or oats taken off the land some small return must be made to the soil which has produced it. A class of impecunious tenants cannot do this. They have interest to pay on borrowed capital locked up in stock, tools, seed, and houseroom, and so long as they are called upon to compete with the grain growers or meat growers of other countries, the balance of profit left on ordinary farming transactions is too small to leave any margin available for expenditure on renovating materials for maintaining the fertility of the land. The oommonest fallacy of the day is to suppose that any man who can do nothing else is fit to start as a farmer, like the individual immortalised in verse, with a pig, a horse, a cow, and his wife to mind the dairy while he shall drive the plough. Fraotieal farmers know well that such is not the case. In New Zealand an agitation in favor of village settlements and land on deferred payments has been got up by Sir Or. Grey as an electioneering cry, and a certain number of the unemployed have taken it up, in the hope that relief will be afforded them in some shape or other by the Government. One member of the Wei. lington Working Men's Bights League gravely proposed a resolution in the following words :—"I would also ask for timber to erect a house for eaoh family, a cow for each settler, a team of horses and a plough for every ten settlers, the cost of these to be added to the price of the land, making the whole amount payable in seven years, at a small rate of interest." Happily,'this was set aside in favor of a motion urging upon the Government the desirableness of setting apart land for settlement on deferred payment on reasonable terms, as the best way of promoting settlement. To the latter resolution, so far as it goes, we are not prepared to take exception. We think that the deferred payment system under a carefully framed set of jaws may perhaps be extended with advantage in this country. But an impression has got abroad, and has been carefully fostered, that the present depression has. been, in part, at least, caused by the absence of such facilities as are now sought for. To this we would only reply that in victoria, where free selection has prevailed for more than ten years, coupled with manhood suffrage and an elective Upper House, a far larger number of men are out of work, and suffering for want of it than is the case in New Zealand.

One grave objection has cropped up against the Victorian system of land tenure. It may be thus stated: Whenever large numbers of the community are, by force of circumstances, converted into debtors to the State, a serious political danger arises. On the eve of a general election, for instance, a bad harvest or a drought may seriously interfere with the prospects of the deferred-payment •men or free selectors; they may agree to petition the Government of tho day fer a remission of their rents or progress payments. Under such circumstances a refusal would alienate the sympathies, and perhaps also the votes of the petitioners. On the other hand, a compliance «ith their request would act as a great Solitioai bribe. This is no fancy sketch. The anger v one that has already attracted attention and caused considerable anxiety in Victoria.

We have on previous occasions poinfed out that the number of holdings is quite as great in proportion to population in New Zealand as it is in Victoria. It is scarcely reasonable to suppose that this would be the case, if the land laws of this colony were so restrictive as some would try to make the public believe. In 1879, in New Zealand, there were 21,000 holdings, the population being 415,000; in Victoria there were 46,000 holdings to a population of 830,000, which is at the rate of one agricultural holding to every nineteen persons in both cases. It is scarcely fair to compare tbe number of holdings in the two colonies, seeing that no less than 25,000 owners in Victoria have not completed their purchases, and a large proportion of the selections will, in the ordinary course, relapse to the Crown, owing to non-fulfilment of the conditions of occupation or progress payment. In New Zealand there were, by the latest returns, 2,300,000 acres under cultivation, in Victoria only 1,560,000 acres. It will be seen, therefore, that in spite of the pressure of population upon the land in Victoria being infinitely greater than in New Zealand, the area in cultivation per head of population is nearly three times as great in this colony. Had we chosen to compare the system of land tenure in New Zealand with that of New South Wales instead of Victoria, we believe that New Zealand would not have suffered by comparison with that colony. In our opinion these men are false friends to the people who endeavor to persuade working men and artisans to settle upon the land without a little capital, and if possible, a little experience also, to help them. If by any means the State or a company can provide steady employment for such a term as to enable a body of working men to accumulate savings sufficient to allow them to establish themselves each in a house and garden, and to obtain a section of fertile land on deferred payments close by, village settlements may be successful. Without some such provision for the employes, they are unlikely to isucceed.