The New Zealand Herald. AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1567.

New Zealand Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1065, 13 April 1867, Page 4

The New Zealand Herald.

AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1567.

SPKCTEMUE AGENDO. " Give every man thine car, but law thy voice j Tafee ep.ch man's censure, but reserve thy judgment This Rbcve all,—To thine own «elf be true And it must follow, :ii the night th;; day. Then canst net tlicn t€ false to any

The question of free trade in land has received a full measure of discussion at the public meetiug held at Drury, on "Wednesdaylast. On that occasion the almost unanimous feeling of those present was in favour of the view of free trade in land entertained andcnunciatedby Mr.W. Howe, aud which, in this journal we have pointed out as the only true one. A. suggestion was then made by a person present, that the following resolution should be put, namely : —

That Jiis meeting pledges itself not to support any candidate for the Superintendent"}' who does not consent to do his best to give cll'cct to the j following policy:—l. Retrenchment. 2. Responsible Government. 3. Free trade in native land. 1. That the Government shall not deal ill any laud, beyond disposing of the present provincial estate. 5. That every facility be given to the natives to acquire Crown grants. Anxious, however, as those present were to have some tangible motion before them, the bait was not to be so greedily swallowed as hoped for, and it was not until after that the 2nd and -Itli items of the above sketched policy were eliminated from the resolution that it was passed in the following form : — " That this meeting pledges itself not to support any candidate who does not consent to do his utmost to give effeet to the following policy : — " 1. Retrenchment. " 2. Free trade in native land. "3. To give every facility to the natives to acquire Crown grants. " -X. To encourage a local system of education " 5. To assist in carrying the rail wa}- to the TVaikato. " The question, however, which absorbed the chief share of discussion on "Wednesday, and which really is the most important of all, as concerning the future welfare of this province, was the advisability ot otherwise of allowing the Provincial G-overnment, as an agent of the public, to participate in the privileges, whenever the} - shall have been accordcd to us, of free-trade inland. On one point all are agreed, that every facility should be afforded to the native in obtaining a crown title to his land, and that between all such and Europeans desirous of purchasing land there should be entire freedom from legislative interference. This desirable state of things, however, is to be obtained not from any future Superintendent, but from i the General Assembly of Kew Zealand. |

Narrowing the matter into detail the question has been raised, whether or no it is advisable that the Provincial G-overnmcnt shall be at libert} r to purchase native lands on equal terms with individuals, and on this point the meeting of "Wednesday gave a most unmistakeable expression of opinion. They would not even entertain the proposition that the Provincial Government should not be permitted to deal in land. They believed with the majority of the speakers who took part oil that occasion that such a check as the agency of the local Government or. behalf of small capitalists is necessary to prevent the vast territories of the natives from falling into the hands of a comparatively few men. The feeling of the public mind in this Province is decidedly in favour of the land being held by a numerous proprietary, the bulk of whom shall be occupiers also, than of its being held by a few rich landlords with a dependent tenantry and labouring population under them. The latter condition is indeed one wholly at variance with the spirit of Colonisation.

Those who advocate the driving of the Provincial Government out of the market altogether, do not desire to see free trade in native land, but merely wish to turn over the monoply of land purchase from the Government which has hitherto enjoyed it, to a few wealthy capitalists who hare long been hankering after it, and who have long since laid their plans and arrangements for taking advantage of the opportunity wherever it should occur. Let, however, the present objectionable Native Land Act be repealed—and repealed and a better one enacted in its stead there must be—there would still be between the land monopolist and his prey the protecting influence of the Provincial Government. It is just this last obstacle to the full enjoyment of laud-sharking that is sought to be set aside by the prohibition contained in the resolution " that the Government shall " not deal in any land, beyond disposing of " the present Provincial estate." The laudspeculator knows well enough that the Provincial Government, as a capitalist, can buy as cheaply and as extensively as he can, and that in retailing it out again, 110 higher price will be asked than the actual cost of purchase, survey, and other incidental official expenses connected with its sale— that there will then always be a cheap opposition shop where the small capitalist, the mail with only a huudred or a thousand pounds can go and buy as cheap and as good land as he would be asked three, perhaps tire times as much for by the land-speculator, if only the protecting agency of the Provincial GoVerncould be kept out of the way. The consequence of such a state of things would be

that middle class immigration would be turned aside The man with the family and means to turn from fifty to 500 acres into a productive farm, a freehold estate whieli lie might enjoy in his old age and leave behind him to his children, would no longer look to this Province as a field for emigration. It is; our cheap laud which attracts such men here, and wo must take every care that such men feel certain that on arriving here they can procure it at a fixed and cheap rate if we. wish the country to be filled up and colonised to any perceptible degree in our generation. "VYe have seen no substantial argument as yet adduced by those in favour of excluding the Provincial Government from becoming a purchaser of native land oil equal terms with individual members of the public. It is quite true, as they say, that the war and misery of the country are the result of the laud policy of the Government ;but in what, we ask, doestlie possession by the Provincial Government of the simple privilege of purchasing land, a privilege held only in commun with every individual of the public, resemble the Government land " policy," which the advocates of monopoly so justly condemn? TV hat made that "land " policy " so hateful to the natives was that the Gov ernmenfc excluded any purchaser from the field but itself, and that consequently the native must sell at its price or not at all. The Maori felt this to be neither mor? nor less than legalised robbery, albeit that it was the law of his protecting mother, the Queen, and not that of his alleged spoiler the pakehn, colonist, and he therefore kicked over the traces, and no wonder that ho did so. It is for the general Government to enact and for his Excellency to assent to such an alteration in the Native Land laws as will remove all cause for such feeling of irritation in the Maori mind. It is from them that free trade in Maori land must come. But that boon once granted to the two races, we fail to sec how the local Government's touting for land can be any way more offensive to Native land owners than the touting of Messrs. Smith, Brown, and Robinson. So much for the clap trap contained in. that semblance of an argument. Again the}- say that the small capitalist would not be faithfully served by having the Provincial Government as his agent, always provided of course that he did not care to act on his own behalf, inasmuch as that the officials of the Waste Lands Office would

spot " all the good laucl for themselves or tlieir friends, that is, we presume, give illformation to friends as to wliieh were the best portions of a block. Now there are two answers to this objection—first it is in the power of any man to examine the land and judge for himself instead of resting his faith ou any official's information, and secondly that purchasing under an open trade the Provincial Government could take care to buyonly good laud. Hitherto the Government bought as a monopolist, fixing its own price, and saying " I will give only so " much," say sixpence or tenpence per acre. The native wanted money, but still the Government wanted land quite as badly, and the former in some way retrieved the unfairness of his position, of late years, by resolutely refusing as a rule to sell other than his inferior lands. Again, too, the Provincial Government dealing wit h the laud it had bought, as a dealer would retail any other kind of article, would sell different qualities of land at different prices. It could only be where there was one uniform fixed price that Waste La-nd officials could give any advantage of information to their friends. The full knowledge acquired by the Government, as to the quality, capability, advantages, local position, or otherwise, of each block of laud, if used for the purpose of classifying such lauds, would leave subordinate officials no knowledge to impart to private friends which had not already been used for general public information. No very great amount of honesty or care on the part of the Waste Lands Commissioner would be required to prevent such a disgraceful state of dishonesty as has been, we believe unfairly, charged to that department.

The result of the sale by auction of certain native land at "Waitakerei, lias been instanced as proof that tlie native laud would fiud its way in small lots, by auction, to the general purchaser, The illustration—used, by the way, to show two opposite and irreconcilable facts, that the European would be able to buy land cheap, and the Maori to sell it dear—isauiost infelicitous one. Thesale was a Maori experiment, and the result gave the most intense dissatisfaction to the Maori owners, who are not likely to repeat the experiment. "You pakehas are all rogues," was the reply to the question, whether the results of the sale alluded to were satisfactory, asked of a principal owner by a, gentleman in Auckland. As to the assertion that when once the native laud holders held under the Crown, their lands would become liable to provincial imposts, we need only remark that Provincial Councils have not the power of legislating in matters affecting the natives. It may not be necessary to bear such a trifle in mind in delivering a stump speech, but the fact is none the less a fact for all that.

Finally, we would warn tlie electors of this province lest they foil into the trap laid for them. Free trade in land means the right of the man of small means to go into the market for his fifty or a hundred acres, just as much as it means that the man or company who counts his or its capital by thousands, or hundreds of thousands, should go into the market and buy his or its fifty thousand or five hundred thousand acres. But it is absurd to suppose that with such competitors as large capitalists in the field, having a regularly-organised machinery for the purchase of native land, the smaller capitalist will stand any chance of success. Intending emigrants at home will never run the risk of being able to do so. They will wisely prefer Canada and the States, where the Grovernment, as an agent, supplies the land to them at a fixed, reasonable price. Fancy for a moment the chances of success a raw immigrant from home, wanting land, would have, of proceeding up-country from his ship to deal with the native owners ! Such a man could only have recourse to an agent, and the best agent he could have would be the Provincial Grovernment, buying cheap, because buying in large quantities, and retailing it to him at cost price If that agent does not exist, then lie will have to give the land speculator his price, or submit to rent land instead of obtaining a freehold. "When matters come to this point, good-bye to immigration of the best kind—men of the middle class, and

farmers of sni:;ll capital, the men who could 1 lie ienani tanners :it home, but: who come ! oU t here lo become llioir own landlords.