The Lyttelton Times. FRIDAY, MAY 6 1892.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 9718, 6 May 1892, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. FRIDAY, MAY 6 1892.

The Wellington Land Board lias dealt magisterially and most carefully with the cases of Messrs Elgar and Pharazyn. As the Board is. not a society paper of the character of Truth, it was precluded from making any comments of any kind. Otherwise it might have compared itself to Mr Bumble in the act of_ discovering the son of a merchant prince getting a habitual meal “ free, gratis and for nothing ” in the shape of an out-door distribution of “skilly” at the magic hour of dinner, among a crowd of paupers for whom the dole was primarily designed. Mr Bumble, expatiating on the “ bragiau himperance of that young man,” offers himself to the world of caricature and cartoons with irresistible effect. But a magisterial body, charged with the administration of the land laws, is entrusted with the care of the basis which is.to carry tho present and all

coming generations on a solid foundation of justice towards the goal of national prosperity and universal content. Such a body is forbidden by force majeure —invisible, unwritten, indefeasible—from straying into the paths of humour or the byways of satire. The Wellington Land Board has found and declared that there is nothing in the land laws to prevent a father from buying and improving lands for his children under the liberal tenures of our most liberal system, provided he does these things for their benefit and not for his own.

That is nothing new. We all of us were aware that the land laws permit fathers to advance the interest of their sons in this way. Probably very many of the deferred payment settlers and young men who have taken up land under perpetual lease are working with paternal money, under paternal advice. The novelty in these cases is that the owner of a large estate has secured land for his offspring under the liberal provisions of the Land Acts. Now,these provisions were intended to facilitate the settlement of the poor, who, under the cash system, have no more chance of becoming independent producers than the little hungry Arabs in a London street have of becoming Lord Mayors, with perpetual basins of turtle soup, by the forlorn process of flattening their little noses above their poor little, watering, hungry mouths, against the windows of a steaming pastry - cook’s shop. If these poor little waifs want a meal they must go off to some dingy resort, presided over by some member of the numerous firm of “ Bumble-and-Barnacle,” who ladles out “skilly” to the “casual” and the “tramp” in return for a certain quantity of picked oakum put into the mysterious condition which, by some magic, has become precious in the eyes of public guardians. It is for such outcasts as these that the cheap distribution of food has been devised. Something of the same sort has been grafted on to our land system. Instead of “ skilly” we offer good fat land on which industry, muscle, brains and courage may carve out independence, sturdiness, content and success. Instead of Bumbles without hearts or heads, we set over our relief system intelligent officers with a keen perception of their duty. The two chief resemblances are (1) that we offer relief to the hungry—earth-hungry they are with us —and (2) that we exact some conditions, simple and necessary, to secure honafides, such as residence and improvement at certain specified rates. These are the analogue to the oakum picking of the casual system. The main special feature is that whereas the “ skilly ” relief system keeps paupers always paupers, our liberal land system prevents pauperism by making independent producers. The great fact is that the liberality of the land laws was devised for those who would, in their own persons or those of their descendants, infallibly become paupers without some encouragement from the State. But no State is called upon by any rule under Heaven to help those who have large possessions to settle their children as yeomen on the public lands. The owners of large estates ought to be compelled, if they want to make settlers of their sons, to settle them on their own properties. They have the secure possession of the unearned increment which the people have by the sweat of their brow earned for them. Let them gratefully leave the people in possession of the liberal provisions of the Land Act which were devised as their property originally. The swift and the strong have acquired a racecourse of their own; let them be kept out of the people’s racecourse, which, by the way, is daily getting smaller and “ beautifully less.” The land law wants instant and radical amendment in this particular.