[From the New Zealand Journal,]

Otago Witness, Issue 19, 27 September 1851, Page 1

[From the New Zealand Journal,]

No man in his senses will go into a market unless he calculates either on the ignorance or on the blind eagnerness of his purchasers. Neither do we advise that land should be offered at too high a price. The first question to be answered is, what is too high a price ? We reply, a price which will prevent, or act as a check, to the colonies being peopled. It may seem a paradox to some at first sight, when we assert that equally good land and equally well situated may be very dear at a very low price and cheap at a high price. It has been stated over and over again, that land without labour and capital is of no value. The price of the land, then, must be fixed so as to tempt capital and bring labour to the land. Land with capital alone is of no value, so capital will not come unless it is certain of labour. Labour and land get on very poorly when there is no capital, even if they could be brought together without it ; and this brings us to the question we have to ask, how is labour to be carried from England to the antipodes without capital ? How are the colonies to be peopled ? If the mother country would consent to be taxed to raise an emigration fund, the colonies might be peopled with labourers, and the land might be portioned out, ten, twenty, or fifty acres to each family, and they might be told to dig and sow, and, if provision was found them for a year, they might continue to thrive and increase. More they would not do. But how are the resources of the country to be developed ? How are the people to be saved from barbarism ? How are they to be governed ? Taxes they could not bear. No capitalist would go among them. But raise an emigration fund in the colony ; sell land at five shillings an acre; judiciously employ the greater part of the proceeds in assisting labour to emigrate. First find the buyers. The old settler will buy — granted. Instantly there is an outcry for labour — wages rise. Labour arrives with the proceeds of the land, and is instantly absorbed. With his high wages the labourer purchases land and becomes an employer. Wages rise again — rise so much that no man "will venture to purchase land. The emigration fund is at an end. Now, how are the colonies to be peopled ? The answer is a frightful one. Labour we must have, cry all the landowners with one voice. Labour you shall have, is the answer. We cannot afford to send you free men, because if we did, they would instantly be absorbed : as the stream increased so would your

emand, but you shall have Convicts. "We advocate, therefore, a price which will bring free labour and capital to the land without expense to the mother country. Twenty shillings an acre has been found to fulfil these objects in South Australia and Victoria. If the mother country is ready, at her own cost, to keep the stream of emigration flowing and increasing, according to the demand, of the colony, then we might wish to see the price lowered. But as she never will make a sufficient grant for this object, we advocate a price which will create and keep up an emigration fund, and which will tempt capital; and we also advocate a well-organised system for collecting emigrants, as well as for raising funds to pay a portion of the expense of their transport : the devotion of the greater part of the land for emigration purposes —its judicious and economical application. We advocate these measures, because we believe that by them alone can the colonies become peopled.