THE EVICTION GOVERNMENT.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8589, 16 September 1893, Page 7

THE EVICTION GOVERNMENT.

Br John Holmjbs.

Little did I think, when fighting th* battles of honest Liberalism, I should live to see a Government, falsely calling itself liberal, attempt to pass a law destroying security of teuure of land and proposing a scheme of eviction that would appal the hearts of the most tyrannous Scotch Lairds or Irish landlords that ever commanded the services of the crowbar brigades. Those evil days have come upon us under the misgovernment of Messrs McK.extr.ie and company, and their Bill to unsettle titles to land, to violate public engagements and good faith, and to forcibly evict freeholders from their tenements, will remain a lasting memorial of the tyranny and injustice of " The Eviction Government-'* They cynically call their proposals a Land Settlements Bill, and the gist of the Bill as it came from the hands of Messrs McKeuzie and Co. is simply to give the Minister of Lands power to evict peremptorily any owner of land in New Zealand, whether he owns 100 acres or 10,000, from any part or parts of his lands the Minister pleases, and distribute them on easy terms to his supporters. He could take under it a farmer's homestead, and pick out the eyes of his farm against the owner's wish, and in breach of the owner's contract with the public to be secured in the undisturbed possession of his lands. The Autocrat of Russia never claimed to exercise a power so arbitrary, the infamous trio, Messieurs Dan ton, Marat and Robespierre, never attempted actions so unjust and tyrannical. This proposal to obtain for the Government authority from Parliament to become the absolute landlords aud masters of every freehold farm in the colony is contained in the second section of this precious Bill, and the words are as follows :—" In the event of any such owner refusing to sell or exchange or on failure to come to an agree* rnent with sucb owner in respect of the sale or exchange of any land required for tho aforesaid purposes the Governor may take such land compuisorily, or so much thereof a* he shall deem necessary, under * The Publio Works Act, 1882.' "You will notethe Governor is a euphemism for Mr John McKenzie and the aforesaid purposes include acquiring lands for settlement under the Land Acts. In other words Mr John McKenzie asks a supposed Parliament of honest freemen to give him power to evict wholesale whom he pleases from their freehold farms such farmers as do not support him, and to distribute the lands so iniquitousiy acquired among his followers. "Do the eviction schemes of Laird McKenzie aud Landlord Reeves recommend themselves to the sons of English, Irish, and Scotch farmers? What is their recollection of evictions and their feelings towards evictors? "The son of one Scotch farmer to wit, Sir Robert Stout, gave his opinion of the measure in no undecided tones. His words are worth publishing, and should siuk deeply into the minds and hearts of every elector who has a home in this country. Criticising the Bill he said ' Sir, I consider this Bill is the most important Bill brought before the House this year. I say this Bill will allow the Government to take away a man's home, and that ia a monstrous thing to do. Suppose any member of the House has a home in the country, he may have been there the whole of his life, for thirty, forty, or fifty years. All that time he has been improving that home; it is where his children were born, and he looks to bis children occupying that home after him. I cannot understand the Government having the power of taking that home away from him and giving it to another man. Such an act would destroy all love for country life, which we want to encourage. It would destroy all love of home and every incentive to improve a man's property if the Government could come down at any time and take it away from him. The value to him may be in his eyeß double the amount of the award which is given as compensation for it, and I think it would be a monstrous thing to take it. I do not wish to see the tenure of land made anything but perpetual, and I wish to see our young men encouraged to make homes for themselves. But if you do not give them security of tenure where arc you ? Yon will not get anyone to go and spend his money on the land and the improvement of it if the Government can come down and take it away from him by proclamation, without giving him any notice of it whatever. It is worse than an Irish eviction or a Highland eviction. Why, air, it is monstrous.' Such was the criticism of the Eviction Bill ol the Seddon Government by the only able, the only independent, and the most honest man on the Government side. If history should take notice of the existence of this lop-sided Social Ministry it will go down to posterity branded as the Eviction Government. Through the vigorous opposition of Sir Robert Stout the Bill was referred to the -Waste Lands Committee and has been greatly toned down, but in its naked deformity, as it came from | the hands of its framers, it is an ineffaceable record of the rabid malignity of the Eviction Government towards every landowner, great and small, in the colony. It proves beyond doubt they are totally unfitted, through waut of political knowledge and defect of mind, to be entrusted with the conduct of the affairs of a free people. llt shows that in spite of all their denials I the/ are bent on nationalising all the land, both town and country, in the colony, per fas aut nefas. They think they have a servile majority to approve their schemes and aid their designs, and so in defiance of law and justice tbey are bent on trampling on the rights and liberties of the minority. Witness their Shop Hours Bill to prevent our free citizens from working when they please and as long as .they please. Witness their Noxious Weeds Bill imposing, under ruinous penalties, duties on fanners impossible to be performed. Witness their compulsory Arbitration Bill, to strangle manufacturers. Witness their Labour Defartment Bill, which seeks to make Mr W. '. Reeves (God save the mark 1) the Grand Inquisitor of the colony, with power to intrude upon and interfere with our home affairs and social life. How long is this intolerable state of things to continue I Are there no men left in New Zealand prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder to protect those rights and liberties which our ancestors fought for and won ?