THE FREEHOLD AND HUMAN CHARACTER.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1259, 16 October 1911, Page 3

THE FREEHOLD AND HUMAN CHARACTER.

Sir,—There is an important point in connection with tho freehold which is not, in my opinion, sufficiently dwelt upon, even by the earnest and consistent advocates of that best of all possibln tenures. It is its bearing on human happiness, oil .the character of individuals, and even on national etHcieney. Much is said—aild logically anil justly said—about the superiority ot the freehold's economic advantages, in comparison with those of other tenures—for they, too, may have advantages, under given conditions; but the freehold's paramount justification is the ell'ect which it lias 011 human happiness and on the character of men mid women. Of this, however, little is said; or, at least, too little is made of it. Yet all times and all lands, ancient and modern, teem with illustrations in this connection. In the palmiest days of Greece, and also of ltome, the man who was held to he happier than the greatest king was the man who cultivated nis own land with his own hands—his own land, observe—not that of another. In the whole course of history, indeed, not only individual well-being, lint general national efficiency, is found in intimate association with the personal ownership of tho land. This is capable of proof from tho history of England herself, and perhaps if our great Mother Land had never had her yeomanry—all potentially, if not all literally, freeholders —I would not have been writing this, nor you giving it to your readers here to-day. That, is, there would, in all probability, never have been any British oversea Dominions. Then, it is "clear enough now, and will probably be still clearer by and by, that the chief steadying factor in tho national life of the United States of America consists in this: That the vast majority of its millions of farmers are freeholders. \\ ere these men and their families not, so to speak, rooted in the soil by means of their freehold interest in it, it is easy to see that, with the hectic commercialism of the Cities, and the unceasing inflow of aliens, there would bo far less assured steadiness of character, and of national efficiency, in that great country. An invaluable piece of personal testimony in connection with the momentous effect of the freehold, thus regarded, is borne by one who was not only a great pcet, but a wise citizen. In writing from Grasmere, Westmoreland, m January, 1801, to Charles James Fox, Wordsworth speaks of the small independent proprietors of land, locally known as statesmen, as "men of respectable education, who daily labour on their own little properties." Then, in illustrating tho effect which freehold tenure has upon character, lie says; "The domestic affections will always be strong amongst men who livo in a country not crowded with population, if these men are placed above povertv. But if they are proprietors of snv.ill estates, which have descended to tliem from their ancestors, the powers which these aifections will acquire amongst such 'is inconceivable by those'who have had an opportunity of observing only hired labourers, farmers, and the manufacturing poor. Their little tract of land serves as a kind of permanent rallying point for their domestic feelings—as a tablet 011 which they are written—which makes them objects of memory in a thousand instances, when they would otherwise be forgotten. It is a fountain, fitted to the nature of social man, from which supplies of affection, as pure as his heart was intended for, are daily drawn." This was written by a wise man, who had his eye on the object while he wrote, and it rai'ht be well if the central fact, and the principal lesson, were constantly dwelt 011 by. the friends of tho freehold tenure in this country. Subject to the limitations which all are agreed upon, that tenure not only as T sures solid happiness and high character in the people, but sterling national efficiency, while at the same time it also promotes, more than anything else, economic soundness in the important, spheres of private and public finance. Hence it is that the freehold—positive or potential, and with judicious limitations in area—is the best of all possible tenures. JOHN CHRISTIE. Wellington, Octobsr 5.