SIR JULIUS VOGEL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 7222, 18 July 1884, Page 5

SIR JULIUS VOGEL.

Sin Julius Vogel has acted wisely in at length electing to stand as a candidate for North Christchurch and for no other constituency. On first starting recently in the second epoch of his political career, his course was somewhat too erratic and meteoric to be quite safe for the reputation of anyone wishing to be considered a sound statesman. Had be courted many more constituencies, people would not have known what he really intended to do, and would have ceased everywhere to reserve their votes iu his favor. First of all, he was to be received with open arms on the East Coast, and Sir Julius Vogel, like Baiikiss, “ was willin'.” Then, when his old enemy, the loquacious Mr Rees, determined to fight it out with him, he fled,and it was suggested in the columns o£ the “Dunedin Herald,” by a certain local poet, that any one of the four Dunedin city seats might appropriately be placed at his disposal. Then he settled for a while on Ashburton as his proper sphere of action, but the substantial Mr Wasoh was no more inclined to give way in his favor than the airy Mr Rees had been previously on the East Coast.- And so Sir Julius declined a battle at Ashburton. Next iu order, the “manycounselled Ultsses ” of Staumore, Mr Pilliet, gracefully offered him the seat which he could not retain for himself any longer than the next general election ; but the coquetting came to nothing. Then the Vogeliaii star was to blajje forth at Wellington, and South Wellington and Te Aro iu turn were spoken of as likely to furnish its longitude and latitude. Rut South Wellington had been previously bespoken by the Mayor, and Te Aro could not be won from Mr CnxnLES JoiiNsioir except by means of Sir Julius’ belc noir at present, a tough fight. Besides these places, he asserts —and wo have no reason to doubt his

statement—that he lias been invited by several others, in all about a dozen. But the old maxim about falling to the ground between two stools holds good perhaps in a still more striking manner with regard to hesitating between a dozen seats. So Sir Jehus lifts done well to fix on North Christchurch and let the other places go. If public gossip is worth much, ho is likely to bo returned for that electorate. He has announced —apparently for strategic purposes —his hostility to the now scale of grain railway freights, and that is the one article of faith in which the commercial aristocracy of Christchurch affects to believe just now. Perhaps even the residents on the North Belt and on Park terrace may take upon themselves the responsibilities of" a political contest and fight his battle for him. And, as for the majority of the voters, who may possibly claim to bo Liberals, though not Groyites, so experienced a diplomatist will perhaps have little difficulty in persuading them that he is a Liberal of the most pronounced type. For the term itself has notoriously become one of so doubtful a moaning that it is generally supposed by the knowing ones only to indicate a candidate of that class which promises to give to those who have little or nothing everything they like to ask, provided the donor has no further sacrifice to make than to give the promise. A promise just now would probably no more stand in the way of Sir Julius than it would in that of any other politician similarly anxious for success. He will most likely succeed, therefore, in getting re-1 turned, perhaps with no opposition. •Whilst we should much like to see a fair number of able men in Parliament —and Sir Julius Yogel is unquestionably that—we doubt whether he would render much service to the colony just now. We can only regard his political programme, so far as it has any distinctive character, as being in part useless, in part mischievous. Its main drift is to encourage a misplaced “ confidence ” in the permanent value of land, so as to facilitate further borrowing, apparently for the mere sake of having money to spend for a time, and without reference to its reproductiveness. Such a policy might bo a desirable one for those in any way concerned in the negotiation of loans, but to the colony at large the carrying of it into effect would only mean a heavy addition to the burden under which we are at present laboring, the million and a half already payable annually for interest. As for any statesmanlike novelty of device to alleviate the present financial depression, wo fail to see in Sir Julius Yooel’s various public announcements the least fraction of a contribution towards such an object. Whatever in them is new is not wise, and whatever is wise in them is not new, and on very many points of great importance he confesses himself quite in doubt.

Sm Julius Vogel has now been openly proclaimed by his supporters a great party leader, and there are many who do not hesitate to assert that in the early part of the nest Parliament the fight for the premiership will be between him and Major Atkinson. This may perhaps prove a correct political forecast, and if so, wo shall not be sorry to see the question fairlyfoughtout,knowing,as we do, that there is far more vitality in the Ministry and their followers than is generally supposed. Of the two loaders, it is almost needless to say that we prefer Major Atkinson and his colleagues to their probable successors, and on this matter wo shall be ready at any time to “ give a reason for the faith that is in us.”

On no one topic has Sir Julius Yogel Spoken more contemptuously of the Ministerial policy than with regard to Mr Rolleston’s proposal for the perpetual leasing of waste lands. At Ashburton he was pleased to style it “ unmitigated humbug.” Well, if so, Mr Eolleston is an “ unmitigated humbug ” in remarkably good company. To say nothing of Mr Wallace and Mr Geoege, who are clever, but certainly not tho most sober-minded of men, Messrs John Stuaet Mill and Herbert Spencee are also among the “ humbugs ” who have advocated this crotchet. Does Sir Julius Yogel fancy he can sit on them and crush them ? He might as well sit on Mount Cook or Mount Egmont and think he could crush them. But if he takes up the position that though these are high authorities on ethics and political economy, they are mere theorists as to practical politics, we may remind him that there are practical politicians quite as eminent as himself who hold very similar opinions to those of Mr Eolleston with regard to land leasing, and endeavour to put them in practice. Last Monday we published a cable message from Melbqurne, stating that the Land Act Amendment Bill had been issued by the Victorian Government. “ It provides for reserving ten million acres to be leased for II years, in pastoral blocks of 1000 acres, and for creating an agri cultural block for a similar term, the improvements reverting to the Crown.” Anyone who has watched Victorian politics of late years must be aware that the 14 years fixed upon form only a preliminary term, and that the leasing is to be perpetual, perpetual leasing of land having been for some yea»» past part of the avowed programme of the Liberal party, who are fully represented in thp Service Ministry, Mr Service himself by the way, having bepn for many years past a distinguished laud reformer. Nor has the new Victorian Land Amendment Bill been tho outcome of any sudden excitement. The question of land tenure for a long time past has been closely and_ exhaustively discussed in the sister colony, even more than it has been here, the present Mr Justice Higinbotdam, Mr J. B. Patterson, and other able Victorian politicians having, to our own knowledge, warmly advocated perpetual land leasing in Parliament more than nine years ago. And why should they not ? Tho insular prejudice of Great Britain in favor of the freehold tenure of all land has prevailed in the Homo country for the past two hundred years, but it was not always so even there, and through all the early history of our own country, the landowners were virtually only tenants of the Crown holding their property on condition of special feudal service to be rendered. Until quito lately, tho doctrine of absolute freehold, of a monopoly in laud, was regarded as similarly monstrous to the doctrine of a monopoly of air and water, and equally detrimental to the public good. When a now war was proclaimed, the landowners, of whom Parliament’ was almost exclusively

composed, stated in the House of Commons what amount of contribution they would bo willing to pay from their own estates towards defraying the expense. It may bo fairly said that the notion of landed pro perty having largo rights but no duties was one, happily for those limes, nonexistent. And though, perhaps, the epoch which Macaulay has sketched was very imperfectly realised at any time in England,

“ When none v.-era for the party, au.l all were for the State, And the rich man helped the poor man, and the poor man loved the great,” there was not a little of the principle actually in force. We live now in an economic ago, when considerations of sentiment only slightly affect public men. Tet, even now, on purely economic grounds, there aro ample arguments in favor of perpetual land leasing. In these Australasian colonies, it has been found by all careful observers that so long as the tenure of absolute freehold is to bo the only one, it is impossible to put a check on the operations of the land shark, a worthless encumbrance and a curse, who, under cover of the law, robs the country of the wealth which it and not he have created. It may fairly be said that, if from the first foundation of this colony there had been no such thing as freehold tenure, and all the increased value of the land, arising from its settlement and cultivation had gone to the State treasury, there would probably have been no need of any other taxation. To suppose that in such a happy condition of affairs immigrants would not have come hare from the Homo Country to settle, merely because they could not get an absolute freehold of the laud they cultivated, is to suppose that human nature is even more stupid by far than wo find it. It is no use now to lament the past, but we can at any rate act wisely and prudently for the future ; and that is what Mr Eolleston, as Minister of Lands in the Atkinson Government, has lately been doing in the inauguration of the system of perpetual leasing of the waste lands of the colony.