FREEHOLDERS v. SQUATTERS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume IX, Issue 460, 25 May 1861, Page 3

FREEHOLDERS v. SQUATTERS.

[From the New Zealand Advertiser, May 11.] This question, which we touched upon in our last, is now creating considerable excitement in the Province of Otago, owing to the contested election for the Superintendency, and to an aggressive movement on the part of the runholders. Against this movement the acting Superintendent, Major Rich-

ardson, and who is one of the candidates for election, has set his face. His remarks on the subject are well worth reading, and are to a great extent as applicable to this Province as that of Otago. It would appear that the area of Hundreds had been reduced from 100 to 40 square miles, for the security and advantage of the s>quatter, and to the infinite injury of agriculture, and the interests of the small freeholder. It may not be known so well as it ought to he that when a district is proclaimed a Hundred the license of any run, or pottion of a run, comprised within its limits, ceases and determines. Hence the successful attempt made by the runholding law-maker 3at Otago to reduce their limits, aud hence the reason why the Wairarapa and other districts in this Province, have not been before this time divided into Hundreds. Major Richardson says : — " The system of Hundreds, not the restricted ones lately introduced of 40 instead of 100 square miles, is of vital importance. It provides the farmer in the remoter distiicts with a compensation for the advantages which those of his brethren residing near the capital enjoy ; and affords that assistance in the early period of his settlement, when, without roads, battling against the drawbacks of his position, with little capital, but an honest heart, he needs every help. Who ventures to grudge this aid ? not surely the runholders — one alone of which class holds, at a mere nominal rent, more than one-half of the entire acreage of the hundreds, sold and unsold. When they can show a charter fiom Heaven, entitling an individual amoug them to such a possession, and disqualifying the thousands who are straining every muscle in the progressive reclamation of the adjacent wastes, then, and not till then, will I allow them to dispute the right of their fellow-men. Let them entrench their own with moderation, courtesy, and justice, and none will grudge them their golden fleeces. It is to support this that I claim your confidence, and to preserve the land from passing be. yond your reach. What is the direction of the present movement ? It is no less than the subversion of the past, aud the substitution of runholding influences and runholding principles for those influences and those principles wh ; ch have made Otago what it is, and which has placed a contented and thriving population in possession of their inalienable right. Yield but one point, and the movement would stealthily advance until suspicion were lulled, and our land, the land we hold in possession for our children aud our friends, would elude our grasp for ever. I would oppose any aggessdon on the runholders as unjust, ungenerous, and unwise, and I would equally oppose any encroachment on their part as ruinous to themselves. To-day we may have restricted hundreds, grudgingly doled out ; to-morrow a Superintendent in the runholding in. terest ; and there needs but a short interval to witness attempts to secure large freeholds on the runs, to convert the license into a long lease, to stifle immigration, to occupy with sheep the land best adapted for profitable fanning, and the enactment of laws, of which the Land Sales and Leases Ordinance is only a faint sample." We are indebted to a correspondent of the O tago Witness for the following clause from the new pasturage Regulations of the colony of Victoria, and we call the attention of the public, and particularly that of country settlers to it :—: — " It shall be lawful for the Governor in Council, upon the petition of not less than ten occupiers of not less than 500 acres of adjacent purchased land to proclaim that any Crown Lands within five miles of such purchased land (the area of such Crown Lands not being more than three times the area of the purchased land) shall be a common for the use of such occupiers of the said purchased land as shall cultivate at least one-fourth of his or their purchased land ; and every such common shall be called a ' Farmers' Common ' — subject to purchase if required by others."