The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, 25TH NOVEMBER, 1886.

Southland Times, Issue 9384, 25 November 1886, Page 2

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, 25TH NOVEMBER, 1886.

We received the otheT evening a smaN pamphlet (of nine pages) entitled '• The Uoemployed and the Keniedy." The author is a Mr Gavin M. Park, and the publisher a Mr Thomas E. Prico, bookseller, Masterton. What seema somewhat odd is that it came to us per favour of the Government. As the pamphlet is ostensibly a philanthropic one — written for the purpose of solving the " problem of poverty," as far as the unemployed are concerned, it iB probable that our benevolent rulers are helping Mr Park to distribute it throughout the country. There is no harm in thin. It is in fact only what might have been expected of a set of men who have, since the day they took office, exhibited such a burning zeal for the public good in general, and their own Ministerial comforts and perquisites in particular. Only it bo happens that the " remedy " proposed by Mr Park— the nationalisation of the land — has been pronounced to be " unmitigated humbug " (we think theao were the words used) by the ruling spirit of the Ministry. } It i% not likely that Sir Julius Vogel's opinions on this subject bave undergone any great change since he delivered his great Ashburton manifesto—the only really states manlike utterance with which he has favoured the colony since his return to our shores. But Sir Julius is not a pettyminded martinet. He hnmours his underlings by allowing them as much liberty as .keeps the iron from entering their inde pendent souls. The Hon. Mr Balance, as Minister of Lands, is thuß permitted to carry out, to a certain extent, the fad of his friend and patron the Premier about land nationalisation. Sir Juiius Yogel has indeed eaid the whole thing is pure nonsense, but he knows bow prudent it is to let bis tools have their own way in unimportant matters. We Deed not say that the Col onial Treasurer's scheme for expropriating private estates in the vicinity of towns has nothing to do with the Premier's latest hobby—the only one indeed he now seems to possess. That scheme is intended for quite a different end ; and the astute gen tleman knows that all the perpetual leasing and playing at land nationalisation of his colleagues is neither here nor there. We suspect then that Mr Gavin M. Park is indebted to Mr Ballance for hie envelopes "on the Public Service." His pamphlet, we have said, is published at Masterton, Is not this the place where the Minister of Landß recently made his famous speech against the railway policy of his two bu periore, and in favour of Major Atkinson's toad-making proclivities ? We notice moreover that Mr Park is loud in his praises of Mr Ballance. " Too much credit," he says, " cannot be given to our present Minister for Lauds for having passed through Parliament a consolidated land act, which enables us, for the first time for many years, to understand exactly what our land laws really are ; the credit also of devising a scheme of special settlements on a more equitable basis, whereby settlers are able to obtain land without paying a ruinous speculative price in addition to the real value, is due to the Hon. Mr Ballance ; but ho has evidently been hampered by old traditions of the Land Department. Had he been free to formulate a scheme for settling the people on the Crown lands without reference to the prejudices of his colegislatore, he would, I feel certain, have given us a more liberal and equitable land law than that which at present exist?, and I feel equally certain that authority to permit the disposal of the fee simple of our Grown lands would have been conspicuous only by its absence." This is certainly innocent enough and amusing enough, but it suggests how Mr Park's pamphlet came to be sent all over the colony in Government envelopes. We may at least quite reasonably suppose that Mr Pack got hold of tha Minister of Lands just after he had been banqueted, when he would, no doubt, be in a particularly amiable and benevolent frame of mind. The reading of a few paeaages from the " Remedy." including of courae the one we have quoted, would at once CQUVinCQ Mr I3a)lancQ that the pamphlet was an invaiuaW© eonUibutioa to the literature of the depression, and ought to be adopted, or at least patronised, by the Government. We are sorry, however, to gay that Mr Park's little brochure is not of so much importance after all as the newly banqueted Minister may be supposed to have considered it. It is neither inoro nor less than another, and not a very clever, restatement of the nationalisation gcheme. To put it briefly, and in his own worde, Mr Park has endeavoured to show that " perpetual leasing and payment by the State for improvements as they progress upon Crown lands is the only true and equitable method of settling the people on the land." This has already become the old, old story, and many of those who at first 'leapt for joy at thß sound of the good -newa are now incredulous ami d&Bpondent li would be rash to condemn r the proposal ont of band, as co many do, Sir Julius Yogel amongst the number, There j»ay

be something in it ; and as one species of ' land tenure, perpetual leasing ought certainly to have a fair trial on a limited scale. It is not difficult to conceive how it ebduld, succeed sin a Btnall^wsy ; the Tealdifficnlty ia to recenoile ( a large^JovsrgroJßrn State ten antry % ith the ind epend enoe of Parliament. Even that might possibly be done; buttheroisone thing pcrfeclj^ cer'tuin, viz., that no scheme of land settlement will effect the regeneration of human society. " With a land law such as I have indicated," iaya Mr Park, "'which wotild J free capital for its legitimate use, settle meat would progress with leaps and bounds, villages would spring up like magic, and where wild pigs now roam Bupreme, manufactories would start into existence to send forth Now Zealand productions, prepared not only for consumers at Home, bat also tot those a,t the Antipodes. The temporary depression of one or two of our industries would but slightly affect us, as such depressions would be amply compensated by the briskness in many others, which, with the increase oi population, would become firmly established amongst us. Our children would blest us for having, while there was yet time, repealed land laws which were slowly but sorely robbing them of their birthright. The proud title which we claim would no longer be an empty one ; we would, indeed, be the Britains (sic) of the South." Alasl alas! Mr Park's land law would, at tbe best, be only a part, and a comparatively small part of the true " remedy."