LARGE AND SMALL BUSS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 11

LARGE AND SMALL BUSS.

The following letter appeared in Friday's jJaily Times : — TO THE EDITOH. Sih, — In the desultory correspondence ■which has been going on in your columns ■upon this vitally important matter, I venture to suggest that the one great controlling factor in its consideration has been much too lightly emphasised by both parties to the controversy. I am not a Government supporter, but I make no apology for frankly owning that with the single exception perhaps of the late Hon. W. Rolleaion. (who, however, was on this point entirely at one with his great successor) ther# lias never been in New Zealand history an intellect brought to bear upon the land question so keen, so practical, so liberal, end above all so 3UOOESHFUI,, /is that of the Hon. John M'Kenzie. Supposing this to be generally granted, as I fancy it will be, it is worth ■while to regard critically the history of tho late Minister's attitude towards the question of large and small runs : for I judge from the correspondence in question rhat a few people in Otago are once more inciting the authorities to the fatal and suicidal policy of snipping up our great mountainous pastoral areas into HtMe bits, and pretending to believe — for no sane person ever could or did really believe — that they can be so occupied with profit to their holders or with credit or benefit to the State, itself. What is John M'Ken zie's record in relation to this most important question? He entered Parliament in the capacity of a small fanner cf the extremest radical views ; lie left Parliament, after a long and .strenuous career, etill a small farmer of similar views ; and he died describing himself yet, and l>eing described by all who cared to cb h>m justice, Jn precisely the same terms. J-lut. remaining the same land reformer of the most extreme liberal views, and devoting himself from the beginning to the finish of his long term of power to the single ond of dividing up large and promoting small settlement. he, nevertheless, years ago found it utterly incompatible, both with honest conviction and with_ his responsibilities as guardian of the lands of the country, to pretend to believe what he had once enthusiastically believed and powerfully fdvocaled as the right policy of the State lowa-cfe larpe and small runs. When he entered Parliament as a private member he sprang at ence right to the front as an uncompromising and fiercely earnest advocate for sn ashing up every large run and every large runholder in Otago and Canterbury. Tbo Hon. G. F. Richardson, then or shortly afterwards Minister of Lands, was su/pected in some quarters of being a *' squatters' man," because, though under his administration the' spread of small settlement was really remarkable (he put far more settlers on the | land than John M'Kenzie's utmost efforts could afterwards secure in the same number ! of years, as official records iev>eated!y cited by yourself, Sir, clearly showed \at the time), and John M'Kenzie made nis lifea burden to him by his fierce rev-roaches •whenever a single run was let. In the teeth of powerful opposition, John M'Kenzie as a private member ooneeived, introduced, and actually carried an amendment to the Land Act of the day (Known as the M'Kenzie clause) which ai one stroke put an end for all time (if he had not afterwards himself changed it) to the "holding by one ncrson or company of any run which would carry over 5000 sheep. "What, then, I am emphasising up to this point is that the most ultra-radical land policy ever urged even by a small farmer has already had its day of triumph — has had absolutely its own way, and has crystallised that way in the law of the land. Now, what followed? John M'Ke-nzie came into office. His first official act as a Minister was to withdraw from the market every run open to lease at the t'me. His second was to make an official tour through Otago and Cantez-Bury and to deliver a series of speeches, the kernel of which he himseif put into these remarkable ■words: — "Gentlemen, there is the land: it is. as you all know, locked up from you and your sons : but " (putting his hand dramatically in his pocket) "I think I have a key here that will unlock it for you ai.d for them." In short, the smasivng of runholders was in 1891 an actually accomplished potentiality: and the execution of the policy was in the unfettered hands of the most ijopular and most powerful Minister, who ever held office in New Zealand. What, then, could possibly stand in the way of the country rushing blind and headlong to this ruinous end? What actually did stand in the way, as everyone now knows, was the education and steadying influence of experience, and the constant pressure upon an -earnest and honest mind of the great responsibilities of actual office. A correspondent of yours signing himself "Son of the Tussocks ' rppears to hint that corruption was practised. I do not waste time in dealing with this surprising suggestion as to the motives of a statesman now dead beyond' remarking that it seems to me a singular and shocking thing to seek to support any case, however desperate, by the invention of an explanation which your correspondent cannot but know is not the true one, and cannot but feel is a painful and discreditable one. Experience and responsibility, and an intimate knowledge of Central Otago surpassed hy no -single^ person in the province, compelled John M'Kenzie, by the irresistible force of plain facts, to own that he had been voicing a call for an utter impossibility, and that he simply could nof persist in committing the country to a ruinous course, which in his earlier and less instructed years he had honestly believed to be the right one. He had the courage of his matured opinions, as he had had the courage of his earlier and cruder ones ; and he introduced and passed during his term of office a series of Land Acts which frankly discarded the whole principle of the once famous M'Kenzie clause, and which, while their whole object was to provide for and encourage the extension of small settlement, nevertheless freely owned the absolute n€C»ss<"tv of prevdingf for the continuance of the larger clrss of pastoral runs over great areas of thp southern provinces, and not only that, but of conferring upon their holders a real indefeasible tenure as against the miserable shams of leases with which they ihad had to be contented before. And throughout all this crreat work, so apparently inconsistent with the uncompromising tl <?own-with-them " poliev of hk earlier years, he was supported by the Land Boards of Otago and Canterbury with a heartiness, an enthusiasm, and a personal loyalty and devotion which ought to form one of the •proudest memories of those he has left "behind him.

Contrast this true sketch of the roal rela"ion of a statesman to a State question

with the pettifogging hints and paltry snarlings of " Son of the Tussocks, ' and say which view is the most strikm? 10 an honest reader. The Land Acts of John M'Kenzie, following upon John M'Kenzie's speeches of 15 or 20 years ago, and the same Minister's administrate c acts and relations with the Otago and Canterbury Land Boards, form a warning- to the colony which it is absolutely impossible to n-eglcit when the cry is raised to " Koot out the runholdcrs " and parcel out the back blocks into chessboard holdings. If that fatal error: is ever made it can never be iepaired' save by the wretched and wasteful methods, disfigured by intermediate ruin and bankruptcy, by which it has more than once had to be patched up in the veiy district from which your correspondents write — I mean by " sroupins? " the small grazing runs after wasting public levenue by hopelessly slopping over them, and public money by uselessly surveying them, or. worse still, by winking et getting them illegitimately grouped through the ingenious use of the sisters, the cousins, and the aunts of the so-called "small settlers. Some of this miserable work fell to John M'Kenzie's lot, and in his later years he did not call it " opening up the country. There are still, fortunately, areas which can be opened for small grazing runs scattered throush the country; but the areas that can be so opened without ruinous effects upon the remaining larger runs are now very small, and all tho scribbling anil abusing of John

''Kenzie that your correspondents can do will not make his emphatic \-erdict on the point one iota less impies=i'.e. — I am. etc., HISTOBIAN.