BAR AND SETTLEMENT

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9836, 6 December 1917, Page 6

BAR AND SETTLEMENT

FUTURE Or DOMINIONS This war has already caused a revolution. Mon and women think differently, and have a sense of power. This specially applies to those who have fought and handled weapons of extraordinary power and offensive strength. It applies much loss to those who have lived throughout the war in shelter and comfort, with their minds elated by patriotism, but untouched by the now spirit. Such include most of the wealthy, the landowners, the dwellers in peaceful countrysides, and the many who iia-ve made gi;oat prolixs out of tho war, and have predatory instincts in full swing. What, then, is coming (asks an English correspondent of the Sydney “, 3 u.i")? Nothing unreasonable—only a demand for a bettor and cleaner State, with a better and cleaner chance for every man and woman to live and develop under good and clean conditions. The men will want more money. They will want freedom. They 'will particularly want more land, for it is the open life in open air at farming or pastoral pursuits that will particularly appeal to them. Hundreds of thousands will ache, if they do go back to desk and workshop for tho healthier, freer life, more akin to their long open life as soldiers.

That is one side. It is final, and cannot bo disputed. Tho other is that this country and its Dominions have been re-born. Those in leadership may not know it yet, but the people have Loon re-born. And they know that they cannot survive in tho competition of nations and races, so rudely thrust by tho war into their easy lives, without drastic changes, designed to bring out the best in the British race and make it strong and powerful. Thus from the economic and national points of view there must be changes in land systems. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and their families must be put on tho land. Only thus will they ho satisfied, only thus will we get our productivity increased and our war bills met. Only thus will wo get a sturdier race, capable of fighting tho battles of tho future. Before tho war this country was in J the awful position of a country exporting men. What country can afford to train, rear, educate men and women, and then send them out to ho citizens of some foreign Power? What country can afford to import a largo percentage of its food in these dhys of submarines? No country that intends to be free. Abroad in Australia and Canada there are great tracts of rich land requiring only'men .and capital. Both must bo found, or these lands will go. For it is an unbending law of history that those lands which are not populated shall be seized by those peoples who can populate them. Nature cries out always for more life.