THE LAND QUESTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 6439, 2 December 1881, Page 2

THE LAND QUESTION.

An attempt is being made in the Southern districts of this colony tofoster Socialism — at least, in one of its manifold phases. It is sought-to influence the distribution of property to the extent of petitioning the Crown to sell no more land, but to lease it instead, and to specially tax freeholds now existing. The old cry of “Land for the people, and people for the land,” is abandoned, at least by a section of political agitators who assume the position of a Trades and Labor Council, and the idea now noted forms one of the chief planks of their electioneering programme. How trade and labor can flourish without a continuous increase of population, and how people can, by any possibility, be induced to come hither, if possession of land in their own right is denied them, is not made clear. It seems sufficient to raise an outcry against the Crown parting with any more of its unsold land, and to accept all future occupiers only as tenants without debating consequences. This would be the greatest revulsion of popular opinion ever witnessed in colonial history were it the general wish of the people, and not confined to an insignificant section very badly advised. It ignores the conditions necessary for the establishment of general prosperity, and would, in the proposal to tax existing freeholds, make freeholders render certain tribute to the State from which other members of the body politic would be held free. The fact ia disregarded that the lands in the colony now under offer as freeholds direct from the Crown or from large holders exceed the demand for such description of property, and that, were the terras of possession transformed into leasehold tenure, the demand would be still less. Residents in the colony having a desire to follow agricultural or pastoral pursuits, prefer to buy rather than to lease. Immigrants will not cross the ocean to settle in New Zealand if the chief inducement offered them ia_ merely a slight variation in their position as tenant farmers—tenants of the Crown instead of the private landlord. It is the tenant system and its restrictions against personal independence that drives thousands of British yeomen to the free lands of the far West. It has been found necessary in the Australian Colonies to give grants of land to pioneer settlers undertaking to settle on inland territory. In New Zealand the special settlement system has been of a somewhat similar nature, the main object in either case being to promote speedy occupation and improvement of the waste lands of the Crown. Again, in Australia free selection has been adopted as another means to the same end—the increase of permanent population. All have found warm advocacy —each has proved successful only in comparative degree. The free grant of land in large areas, upon easy conditions of occupation, has induced the grantees ,to hold such lands for profitable sale or to use them as pastoral runs, and thus absolutely impede settlement. Free selection,'instead of settling an industrious yeomanry on the land, has created a new vocation. Settlers and their families have pitched upon all the most fertile spots of unalienated land, as locusts swarm upon a fertile pasture. They have either exhausted the ground by the moat wasteful system of farming, or have merely held it until offered a price by the large landowners, and then, as speedily as may be, have taken up new locations under similar conditions and intentions. In New Zealand the system of special settlements, as yet on trial, is giving fair promise of success, but it pre sents the objectionable feature of a middleman between the Crown and the ultimate purchasers of the soil. The absolute sale of freeholds, which in reality are but perpetual leases handed down from one freeholder to another, presents the best possible incentive to the improvement of property, and improvement in its true sense cannot be achieved without abundant population, which is and has been the crying need of all the Australasian colonies, and nowhere more than in New Zealand. The Trade and Labor Council of Otago and their confreres in Canterbury, who are agitating, the one body for the suspension of sales of Crown land, and the other for the abolition of property qualification for voting purposes, are battling against public opinion. Every man in the colony who owns property, whether in great or small degree, will object to be deprived of the privilege of the franchise held in virtue of such possession, which, in effect, ia beat possible certificate that he has achieved the proper work of the colonist, and obtained a stake in the country. Every man who seeks to perform this duty will object to be deprived of opportunity to gratify his ambition —the possession of a portion of the soil in his own unalienable right. The socialistic tendencies of the associations under notice can scarcely exercise any sway, though the promulgation of their ideas may be widely and sedulously diffused. Supposing for a moment that no more Crown lands were sold in this colony, but offered on lease, the result would be that only the best portions would be so leased, and probably only on condition that rights of pasture were given over unoccupied areas until such were occupied by regular tenants. But it ia not difficult to foresee that, in many instances, such time would be long in coming. A system of gridironing might easily be devised whereby a few tenants working in concert might effectually bar occupancy of lands over which their flocks and herds were running free. Either the system of leasing would have to be hedged about with so many restrictions and reservations to protect the rights of the Crown that the inducements to bring population on the land would be inoperative, or the terms of lease would be so liberal that the rights of the Crown would be in jeopardy. It might be possible to strike the happy medium, but the public utterances of the promoters of the movement under notice have not yet shown that the advantages to be gained would in any degree be commensurate with those to accrue from the absolute sale of land to the highest bidder. It is often argued that the Crown should not part with its estate, because such estate is always increasing in value; that like good wine, it becomes precious by age. The fallacy of this argument is, that it takes no note of the circumstance that waste lands of the Crown have little intrinsic value until occupied and improved, and tkat the Crown, in inducing occupation and improvement by offering facilities for easy acquisition, forestall what is termed the gradual accumulation of unearned increment by the immediate advantage gained in the accession to population and production —two factors, without which the land never can attain more than a mere nominal value. There ia another point these Southern enthusiasts have overlooked. Supposing the Crown decided to sell no more land, would that prevent the present holders of freeholds from supplying the market I And would not these lucky individuals make exceeding profit in the enhanced prices which the monopoly would afford them ! Is it possible that Mr Robert Stout, chief among these political regenerators, has in his mind’s eye such an eventuality 1 He is reputed to have friends who owns broad acres.

If instead of declaiming against the sale of Crown lands the self-appointed leaders off the laboring classes would, on their behalf, seek not only for more liberal concessions bat also*,for lid iff putting

such lands to profitable account, they would do the State some service. Men desire freeholds, not alone for immediate gain, but as inheritances for their offspring. They need, many of them, practical training for their offspring in the vocation which Adam is popularly supposed to have excelled in, but which comparatively few of his descendants yet understand. Agriculture in theory and in practice deserves a foremost place in the curriculum of schools of technical instruction. Such schools as working men justly claim should bo engrafted on the present educational system.