LIBERALISE THE LAND LAWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1765, 19 September 1885, Page 6

LIBERALISE THE LAND LAWS.

(By Oor Southland Agricultural Con-

TRIBUTOR.)

•During tho consideration of the Land Bill by a committee of the whole House, the Hon. R. Stout said " he hoped whatever government was in office during the recess, that a commission would be appointed to examine into the deferredpayment system. He felt sure it would be found that that system was a failure. He did not consider the present bill went half far enough, but there should he more stringent conditions to ensure the settlement of the > land." Stringent conditions '. Aye, there's the rub. Can this be the rock on which we have been grinding ever since the establishment of the Colony ? For a period of no less than about 40 years, our leading talent has been directed towards producing a satisfactory land code, and now after that ample lapse of time, the most forcible and comprehensive comment that can be jrnade on these efforts, is the preceding excerpt from the summary of a recent parliamentary debate. Local ideas and requirements , as embodied by the various Provincial Councils were not successful ; and after the statute book has been overloaded with a tinkered-up conglomeration of shreds and patches of almost every known or conceivable system, tho result is a fresh " set-to . at bewildered tinkering, illumined by a declaration from the Premier that the grand pauacca of a. few years ago — the deferred-payment system — was a failure. His present proclivities, it is well known, are strongly in favour of perpetual leasing, That is tho fashionable and infallible nostrum warranted to put everything right, precisely as was hi turn predicted of each and all of its numerous predecessors.

These, it may be taken for granted, were either introduced here with the prestige of previous Success in other countries, or at least were the highest production of some of our own ablest politicians. Strange indeed does it appear that a modified success is the best position attained by any of these, and that the record generally is either a partial and insufficient degree of fit«ness or a total failure. To a colony depending primarily for its progress on the prosperous settlement of the land, to a commonwealth whose chief mainstay is agriculture and its collateral industries, no subject of inquiry and elucidation can well be of greater importance than the present. No apology, therefore, is required in putting the question — Does the lengthened and varied experience referred to furnish no data from which the errors of the past in future may be avoided, and a fairway discovered along winch we may proceed easily and prosperously, or are we to continue our abortive efforts ad infinitum ? That one at least of our most vigorous statesmen feels uneasy under the last-named prospect, Mr Stout's earnest appeal to Parliament to appoint a commission to examine into the deferred-payment system is apparently strong proof. There can be, therefore, less diffidence in throwing out a few fresh ideas that have occurred to mo in pondering over the subject.

The first point to be determined is to ascertain what causes have prevented those land regulations referred to as having been successful elsewhere from being equally so here. If, with a similar population to act upon, certain regulations succeed in America, but in New Zealand either fail or are but a partial success, it is only a fair and sober inference to conclude that there is something very far wrong in the spirit and