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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4119, 3 June 1874, Page 2

We have before us a pamphlet on “ An Agrarian Law for Now Zealand,” written by Mr. C. W. Purnell, of Wanganui, in which some rather extreme views are urged with considerable force and ability. Running underneath these there is, however, a current of sound common-sense. It is the old case with Mr. Purnell. Wo admit many of his premises, but cannot chime in with all his conclusions. Had ho confined himself to what the title of his pamphlet purports it to be, very probably he would have secured the adhesion to his views of many converts ; but by mixing one subject with another ho has weakened tho force of his argument. This, put briefly, was that, inasmuch as a paid servant is. always a dependant, and never exactly a free man in tho sense that he can throw up his employment on tho slightest appearance of tyranny on tho part of his employer, there ought to bo tho opportunity for every one to buy a small section of land that ho may live upon it, and maintain himself and family on its produce. In order that this Arcadian dream might bo realised, Mr. Purnell would make it penal for any one to possess in fee-simple over 640 acres of land; or for any family, consisting of father, mother, brothers, and sisters, to hold over 1,000 acres. Wo pass over the inconsistent and illogical latter portion of Mr. Purnell’s Agrarian law, binding a man who might have half a dozen brothers, each with a dozen married children, to stick to the one thousand acres of laud, to observe the principle on which ho reasons. Ho wishes to prevent “ the bulk of the people being enslaved by the insatiable Demon of manufactures.” “ Man, ” says ho, “was not born to toil in factories, or to make railways, or roads, or bridges.” Tho first conclusion most persons would arrive at is, that if all tho members, however numerous, of one family, were to bo tied down or strapped on an area of 1000 acres, some of the girls would wish they were born to toil in factories, and a few of the boys would volunteer to mako railways, roads, and bridges. Tho idea of circumscribing tho tenure of lands is by no means a new one. In Ills great book on Political Economy, Mill dealt with it very freely, and, as was usual with him, exhaustively. Land, said ho, is not, as tho elements air and water, inexhaustible. It may appear to be so in newly settled countries, but oven there limitation soon arises. That which is most accessible, most fertile, or that has tho readiest means of communication, is first occupied, and is most valuable, unless highways or railroads aro artificially constructed. Then, again, some is unfit for cultivation, whilst other is of a higher quality. But from the very fact of its being limited, Mill held that it should only be possessed in a limited quantity by individuals. This view of tho great master of political economy, Mr. Purnell, with a modesty that is common to many colonial teachers and politicians, held to be a much lower one than that on which his argument rested. Ho looked fh'st at tho vast amount of pauperago there is in tho old world. Immediately over this substratum he saw the toiling millions, victims ho considered of the “ civilization of manufactures,” "who “ are compelled to devote the whole of their time and thoughts to obtaining the means of satisfying their animal wants, with tho painful consciousness ever present iu their minds that some trilling chance may render their exertions unavailing, and plunge thorn into all tho miseries of destitution. Life to them is but a brute existence, whoso pains aro rendered keener by their possession of higher faculties than dwell in brutes of the field ; and when death comes they can only look back upon a series of years spent in bitter struggles to obtain broad. ” To Mr. Purnell it is something horrible that a colliery proprietor should have SO, 000 persons in his employ, and that great railroad contractors like the Messrs Brassey should have as many as 70,000 persons working for them in one or other part of tho globe ; but oven this is not tho worst. It is but on the outer circle of tho Inferno he pictures. It is terrible enough for so much capital to be accumulated in tho hands of one man, but tho human cogwheel may appeal if crushed. It is in tho power of associated capital, devoted to tho one object of moneymaking, that ho sees “appalling danger to the social liberty of tho bulk of the community.” Companies sometimes pay huge dividends, whilst in large towns whore their operations aro principally effected, workmen starve, or drag on an aimless existence from tho cradle to tho grave, and men, women, and children continue in squalid and wretched poverty. 'Mr. Purnell’s remedy for tho influx of population to great cities, and against human beings remaining mere cogwheels in tho social mill, is to limit tho tenure of land as wo have stated, in order that all may have a chance of obtaining a slice. Tho limitation of tho possession of land may ho defended on philosophic grounds, although thoro is much to bo said on tho other side of the question. All that Mr. Purnell seeks to bring about, tho great school of politicians and political economists who form the Oohdon Club maintain may bo effected by having free trade in laud. They, it must be admitted, aro no moan authorities ; but even their theory is evidence in favor of tho principle that it is not well for a gigantic estate to bo held by one man. They would, however, bo utterly opposed to Mr. Purnell’s theory as to tho “Demon of Manufactures.” Through tho agency of this Demon, tho comfort and tho prosperity of tho whole civilised human race have been most materially enhanced. Manufactures, it must bo admitted, have made enormous strides during the past thirty years, and anyone wishing to know what was tho state of England prior to this period, should road Mias Martineau’a “History of tho Thirty Years’ Peace,” iu which it will bo soon that provision dealers wore subject to incursions from wolfish men prowling for ’food for their children, or from half-frantic women with their dying infants at their breasts. In some populous districts, there wore “hundreds of thousands of famishing men, women, and children,” and employers were sinking into ruin, and had nothing to give but out of their dwindling capital.” Bettor work in factories or make railways and roads than this. Nor is it true that workmen, whilst employed at tho toil affording them daily broad, “ cannot enjoy tho pleasures to bo derived from tho intellectual gifts God has bestowed upon them.” An artisan can, and very often docs, think and reason upon many subjects; and ho has the seventh day to himself. Even if ho work

ten, eleven, or twelve hours per diem, he does not then toil as some of the greatest men in England do, nor as many persons do who appear to those whom they meet to have very easy times of it. The world is so constituted —doubtless wisely—that if property were to be equally divided this year, in the very next some men would bo employers and others employed. It may be sad to Mr. Purnell that one man should by commercial shrewdness and untiring exertion amass sufficient capital to employ 20,000 laborers, but that man is a bettor citizen, and a more useful member of the community, than the spendthrift who descends to a pauper’s dishonored grave. And if companies can bo formed to manufacture or trade more advantageously than ■ single individuals, the country in which their operations are conducted will prosper to a greater extent than that in which tho individuals are located. When Mr. Purnell writes again, ho would do well not to overlay a substratum of commonsense with a stratum of what, despite its being well and forcibly put, is nothing more than bunkum and nonsense. Probably ho believes that the world is echoing what Mr. Carlyle terms tho prayer to Beelzebub,, “Oh help us, thou great lord of shoddy, adulteration, and malfeasance to do our work with the maximum of slimness profit, and mendacity, for tho devil’s sake, amen.”