THE DIVISION OF LAND AMONG A MAN'S CHILDREN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 876, 29 August 1879, Page 2

THE DIVISION OF LAND AMONG A MAN'S CHILDREN.

The subject which we would like to see put before the electors in the coming campaign is the proposal for subdividing landed property, equally amongst children on the death of a parent. Sir George Grey truly describes the condition of the great mass of the population in England as being no better than serfdom. What is the chief cause of this ? There can be no doubt that it is the iniquitous land system of the mother country. If Sir George Grey would prevent the future generations of New Zealand from sinking into the miserable condition of the masses in .England, he should do his utmost to procure the enactment of a law making it compulsory to divide the land equally amongst the children pn the death of a parent. In the natural condition of nations the land is distributed amongst the whole people. There was a time in England when freeholders were numerous — when the farmer tilled his own ground, and had not to contribute the bulk of his earnings to the support of the wealthy lord, who does nothing but squander tho money dragged from the

down-trodden toilers. Feudalism was introduced, and, like the blast of the simoom, it blighted the fair face of the country. " A time there was, ere England's griefs began. Z Where every rood of ground maintained its man." But with the progress of feudalism this happy condition of tho people utterly passed away. The infamous law of primogeniture wrought sad havoc amongst the English yeomen. The progress of aggregation went on from age to age, till at last the vast was of the people hare no claim on the Boil of .he country of their birth, "and are permitted to remain there at all only on suffrage from the landocracy. Primogeniture has produced the same disastrous consequenceßj not only in the British Islands, but in every country of Europe that has been unfortunate enough to permit of its. ; existence. The fearful state to which it had reduced France at the time it was thrown off, towards the close ' of the last century, is a matter of sad notoriety. Its abolition was the signal for the virtual emancipation of the French nation. The only country in Europe that was never cursed by the withering influence of feudalism is Norway. There the law — whose enactment for New Zealand we strenuously advocate — lias been in force for more than a thousand years, and has producedj most beneficial results. It now rests with the statesmen' of this country to determine whether in after ages the mass of the New Zealand race shall be in the melancholy condition of the English serfs, or whether they shall live lives, of freedom and contentment like the yeomen of Norway. No matter what laws are passed for counteracting the aggregation of vast landed estates, unless the law for subdividing laud amongst families is enacted the melancholy story of England will, centuries hence, be paralleled in New Zealand. Like causes produce like effects ; and what primogeniture has done for the mother country it will certainly do for this colony if it be not strangled in time. — Chronide.