The Star. THE BRITISH LAND QUESTION.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume L, Issue 9001, 25 January 1906, Page 4

The Star.

THE BRITISH LAND QUESTION.

Delivered every evening by 6 (o'clock in Hawera Manila, Normanby, Okaiawa, Eltbam, Manga* toki, K»ponjra, Awstnna, Opnnake, Otakeho, Mmnutthi, Alton, Hurleyrifle, Patea, and Waverley.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1906.

With its enormous majority the new British Government may be expected to give more attention to the land question than has been given to it for many years. Probably never previously in the modern history of the country lias the question | of the diminution of the rural population | of England presented itself more seriously. Observers see the unmistakeably increasing tendency of the -people to' crowd into the towns and big -cities, with the result that the complexity of' already difficult social problems is deepening. On- the. other hand agricultural labor and agricultural activity are diminishing. Many of the thriftless and unfit swell the throngs of city unemployed; many of the better class emigrate.- either to -Canada, or worse .still to the United • States or the" Argentine, where i.lu?y are lost to the Empire. Mr Bider Haggard, who if he had not won a great reputation as a worker -'n strangely imaginative fiction, would have achieved celebrity for his graver studies of the social side of the agricultural question, recently delivered an address on this subject. In the course of has address he said (we quote from The Times report) "that the subject went very deep down to the roots of the social conditions and the state of the country at large. The general position was that we 'were confronted in England with, a, very curious phenomenon — namely, the flow of population from the country, districts into the towns, and the corresponding gradual depletion and emptying of the land. As to the causes which were leading to that state of things, there was the absolute lack of prospects which confronted the ordinary agricultural laborer of. to-day, who when he reached the age of 21 or 22 years had come to his full strength and was earning- as- much as he had any prospect of earning. The main cause, therefore, of the . people's flocking to the •towns was that they had no prospects ■whatsoever of becoming either farmers or small landowners. Another reason was the housing question in the country., which in many places was very acute. Cottages in the villages were failing down and were not being rebuilt, the result being that many decent young men and women left the countryside because they had nowhere to live. He instanced a case which came under his notice, where the wife and six children of a man who was in work and was witting to maintain his wife and family were obliged to go to the workhouse owing to the want of a house to live in. Other causes of the depopulation of the country included the love of excitement. The influx into the towns was stall going on, and it had reached a dangerous stage; one in seven of the population remained on the land, and the rest were crowded together in the large centres. He considered that the land and its interests and population received very little care from the Governments of this country ; but after all it was the most important subject which could confront our age, in view of the fact that men were a great deal more than money, and that unless we had a healthy population we should not be able to go forward. It was argued that agriculture did not pay, but ho maintained that it could be made to pay. Denmark, a small kingdom with a worse soil and climate than this country possessed, had within recent times lifted itself up to a great state of prosperity, solely by the practice of agriculture by the people; there the depopulation of the country which was going on had been checked, and the population on the land had risen ; the people were happy and prosperous and doing well, and were exporting their produce to this country, all of which we could grow ourselves in England. . -If Denmark, he argued, could do this, he could not see why. England could not do the same." Ac to remedies, he offered various suggestion?, indicating, rather strangely, emigration, but he also seemed to foreshadow a "policy which in New Zealand Uae, proTcld "vejry popular, though -the need for it here » obviously less pressing than it must be. in Great Britain. . He spoke- of the wisdom of "home eettlements," by which he-said he : meant" "tfte &^g^bf . facilities' 4 to persons, who. wei^.'/inwth«./ocmnfery still, to tlje -laboring classes and deserving, the possibility of acquiring land ' renting it or

by purchase, so that they could set up ■on their own. Wherever such faculties were given (hero the exodus to the towns bad very largely abated, and there, the people did well and were more contented. He contended that the people should be, helped to acquire some permaent interest in the land for ihemselves. Whf<re"this was done, there the housing question settled it6elf, because somehow or other the small holders managed to build their own houses. With -regard to difficulties, it might be said there was a lack of land, but he maintained that there should be ' industrial districts as well as pleasure dig- J tricts, ■ and land must be found ior< .the small holder and purchased voluntarily, or, if.it could not be procured in that way,there must be arbitration- or some other arrangement. Land could be purcKaeed-by - the Government for such things ac rifle ' ranges, and he considered'that it might be . purchased for the benefit of those- who wished to 6«ttle on it and' farm it. Then; 1 as to the difficulty which arose in connection with the burden of rates on the land, h(\ said that if the system of small holders were to succeed co-operation must be fostered. There must be somesuch system as that which existed in Denmark, a system of advancing money 'to email" holdnrs. If anything was to be done in' the matter of closer settlement .in .England, there must be an entire ■ change of spirit on the part of the autHorities in the way in which they regarded the land and everything they did with it." The new Government will have a great .responsibility, and its party appears to be so large and co independent of sibsidiary parties and all posible combinations that it will •have an unique opportunity as we^l em the responsibility.