LANDS FOR SETTLEMENT IN THE COUNCIL.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 6058, 18 September 1894, Page 3

LANDS FOR SETTLEMENT IN THE COUNCIL.

♦ In moving the second reading of the Land for Settlements Bill in the Legislative Council, fcbe'BToQ W Montgomery said: There is scarcely an acre of land fit for oppupation jn the South Island, or in Hawke'a Bay and other districts, that is not in the possession of private persons. Many of the persons who have aoquired these properties have been good colonists. They were among the working-bees of the colony, and their properties should be held saored against anything save neooßsity. But we oaonot shut our eyes to the fact that last year the population of tho colony inoraaeed by more than twenty thousand. We cannot shut our eyes to that : and also there are many able and willing men in New Zea« land who cannot find profitable employment at the present time, and have not been able to do so for Bomo time past. In the district I formerly represented in another place, and which I know blatter than any other pirt of the colony, bat which may be called typioal of! other districts, there are farmers who have brought up famjlies re&peotiibly, and who eduoated them thoroughly, ana they haye brought them np on from fifty to two hun« dred aores of land. Many of these farmers have three or four sons j and how are these song to get a living P Are their fathers to split up their properties in the same miserable way that has been done in Ireland, and redaco themselves to a state bordering on pauperism ; or are we to give those young men who wiah to find homes for themselves an i opportunity of going on the lands of the i colony? In addition to these, there ars i many farm labourers who have saved ft little > money by prudence, They »;g not men who i ory out in the streets, but men who hare dona r work and saved their wages. These vyeu [ have • neural ambition to have, homes for.. r themselves. They have Been brought up > working on tho Jmd, and that it the business i they understand best. Then we have men in , the towns. I know of some of them who have > two or three sons, for who there is so possit bility of finding profitable employment ; and r in many cues tho ions have to come to the ) North Island and taken up bush lands, with i the desire to make hornet for themselves. r These are the people who deserve the atteni fcion of this Legislature. They ara the very i strength of the colony. They are industrious ■ and orderly, and they do not wish to seize any • maa's property, or to level down bj taking • from thote who have worked to give' those, \ who have not. These men want an outlet for i their eaetgies $ J. e,«lj honourable gentle* e men where is there an outlet except that

j afforded by this Bill— that of plfcoing them on the land P Dr Pollen— l think, Sir, that within a very short time, when one or more of these ox* periments have be"en tried, it will be found that the right people to settle on the land in that way are not in the colony, and that if the settlements are to sucoeed at all you must go outside the colony for speoial settlers, and import s!ttlerei;ied together by some common sentiment of mutual obligation j instead of collecting them fortuitously from two or throe or from the four quarters of the globe, putting them all down on the land together, and telling them to inoreaeo and multiply, and replenish the earth. Men do not learn farming, and do not learn to work, by intuition ; and it will be found, I think, beforo very long, without any intervention, without any suggestion from the Tories, that the settlers on the Cheviot itself will begin to complain of the position in whioh they find themselves, and will realise their aotualinI ability to dischargo tho obligations whioh they have very foolishly and unwisely undertaken. . . . One would have thought the settle- ' ment of theland was a new discovery, and that it was reservo&jfor the present Government to make that disoovery, and to get a patent for cirryiog it out. It is within my own personal knowledge that settlement upon the land of the population of the country has been the aim and end of every Governor j and of every Government, in this colony ainoe its foundation. . . One of tho objects of this new legislation is to induce settlement by the unemployed. lam afraid this is not a very hopeful work to undertake. It seems that a certain nomadio tendency has besn impressed upon the human rsce by the great Creator for His own wise purpose, and no human laws can arrest this nomadio tendency. Everywhere, it appears to me, the unemployed form the fringe of this. great nomadio contingent, and you must accept the situation and make the best of it, Ton spread your nets in Vain in view. of these wild birds j and the cages you make for them, even though gilded as the Cheviot cage has been gilded at this moment, will hold thorn just as long as there is porn in. the trough and water in the bottles, ind no longer. Coolgardie, with " four pounds' a, week and water," will be found to be a stronger tomptation for these birds than anything you oan offer them. Your cages will not hold them under these oiroumstanceax Mr Oliver— The aeoure and guaranteed possession of property is at the root of the advancement of civilisntioDi Sir, it fills one with astonishment to observe the light-hearted way in whioh a fundamental law of this kind is here sought to be interfered witb. One is lost in astonishment. It seems to me that the interference proposed is no lest destructive than would be a sudden increase of liability to earthquakes. All ourideas.of.what_is stable and lasting are overturned, and there is a feeling of insecurity and general dismay. Well, Sir, in the world of social law will this inter, ference act ; and.no man, however humble, however modest his possegsions may be, can, if this principle u lightly introduced, ff el that he is secure in those possessions, and that henceforth he can regard them as his own. The contracts for land which have been made have been made in every case in this colonf with the Government. It is the Government that has been the seller. Now we have a proposal that one of the parties shall have the power of forcibly breaking the contract — of subverting every principle for wbioh governments exist, for government exists for the pnrpose of securing tbe full execution of contracts entered into. . . . I would submit that it would pay this community better to inour a very large liability to loss ia the purchase from voluntary sellers, of land on whipb to eettlp a, large population than to introduce suoh a prinoiple as this. Sir G S Whitmore— if there is real ncoossity why not borrow enough money to buy out; all these big companies ? There is surely enough land in the handß of the Levels Company, the Edendale Company, or the Assets Company. If thero is this earthhunger, why not get rid of these absentees in the first place P I saw by the Order Paper that there is a proposal to take certain kinds of land first. Well, I think the firas Imitation Bbould be to, take tbe lands of the absentees and of the large companies There is no neoessity to come down on the resident settler who has done so much for New Zealand— in fac.fc, who, {t— simply for ths sake of providing land* for those who had aot the oourage or intelkot to come out bore when the first eeltlen did. . . . The honourable gentleman who introduced the Bill said one or two things whioh struck me very foroibly. Among other things, ho spoke abonfc the country settler who brought up so many lusty eons, and he said t,hais s^A* would have to jso to tjja. Npiftb,* Island— as if he were speaking of the North Pole. We are in toe colony in one part of New Zealand a9 as in another 5 and what hardship would it be for young men to come and eetUe (q this part of the oolopy f I« Bpg!a.Hd o» Ireland they I tblß> nothing of going away to settle in Soot'land, 0; India, qr Qtber plaesa* They go away, and a.a a rule, profit by it* There is no reason why a child when it is able to leave the nest should be enabled to find a property just opposite his father's gat*. It appears to me to be perfectly childish that an enterprising man should not show a little of the spirit that brought their fatbera out to this then barbarous oountry. Ido not see why we should be expeoted to commiserate a poor wretoh because he has to come atd live in the North i Island. The same mistake seems to have been ?"!!"* i"tO oy both my honourable friends, Mr Eeynolds and Mr Montgomery. The wb,ola oolcny is not Qtggo.or Q^f^^i *« tho pase'may b.a. . "■''- Mr Pharazyn.— The first thing that strikes any one on reading this Bill ia that it is a dangerous measure, whioh strikes at the scourity of property, in a way whioh I do not think I ever remember to have been done before— certainjy not in this oountry. If there is one thing more than another whioh history and the experience of mankind teaob, it is that security of property is essential to the progress of any community and to civilisation itself. Any attack upon property is not only neoesaarily followed by very great evil to tho person whose property ia attaoked, but it gives rise to a general feeling of alarm amongßt those who have any property of any kind, even though they are not directly attaoked. It not only injures tbe few, but \t infliots still greater evil uson fche many. . . Taking lan j for railways ojc roada la a totally different thing from allowing land to be taken in the wholesale way proposed under thin Aot. There if, first of all, this distinction 2 that a road or railway is really taken for public purposes, and the whole, publio has a right to use that road or railway ; bat here we merely take away property from. one. set of people in order to give it to.acother set of people. We do not really affect; a publio object ; we merely transfer a certain smouufc of property from one private person to some other private person. To make this measure just and expedient, a much greater case of necessity must be made out than/ has been made out by the honourable gentleman. ... I should like to know, under tbia proposal for taking land, ho* maoy people Would really be settled in any one year undpV. this Aflt^ Tal^ng the retarn p| lands far settlement as a guide, I find " that 4030 acres of land at Pomahaka averaged £3 10s per acre in price, Taking the farms averaging SCO acres, that would give 250 settlers for £250.000 propoied to be spent in one year; Ia it really, worth while to destroy all se'&Be of seourity in the oountry, and to put this country into this extraordinary position, for the sake of settling 250 perions in the course of a year ? And how many of theft perrons would occupy land by going on in. the ordinary conre/9 of fcbj^gg and purchasing land.whe^a''r;i open foraaltf! 80. aft** *!!, Vho total number. o{ feelers might be reduced to ftO ; and all this disturbance is to be bi;ougji|fab(>at; ?or (he sake of settling possibly 50. parsons ! . • • It seems to me that in all these land purchase schemes there is an element of robbery. The advocates of the compulsory taking of land are never quite satisfied unless there is a certain amount of. downright robbery in it. It it is a mere bargain, and land is bought at market price, that is not satisfactory: you must get it at something leis. And then they pride themselves upon having obtained the unearned increment ; but they forget that the unearned, increment, if there is »uoh a thing, goes to the man who mak«s it by first selling hit land,. Well, I suppose the new Liberal is nev^r. happy unless he is compelling somebody to, dp, something he does, not li£e, i,n qrder to/ ajlo.v somebody, els.B \o dpi somethin.?, w.bjn ha W,ou!d have been m,uQh. betttor off if he had left it alone* I admit, Bir, that there is a Bort of demand in the country for this measure.

There are always loti of Ahabs and Jizebels in any community who covet Naboth's vineyard. These people have been agitating for this lot a considerable time, and they are encouraged by a certain class of people to persist in this greed for their neighbours' laud. My only wonder now ia that there is not a clause ia the schedule of the Bill to this effeot "The Tenth Commandment is hereby re • pealed*" That would be consistent with the whole spirit of the Bill. Mr Bigg— The desire to call a thing one's own it is that makes the landowner say when he looks at his land and his flooks, "My home* steady my land, my flooks, my birds, my men." That ia the feeling, and it ia a wrong one. He does not own the men. lam quite willing to admit that a man can own property, and it may be a surprise to aome honourable gentlemen in thia Council to hear that I believe in the ownership of private property j but then it must be property that a man has earned by his labour—at any rate property that he oan conscientiously hold as against other persons. Take, far instanoe, a nomadio race -a people who live by hunting. No one will deny that a man who oaptures an animal that is to form his food has & perfect right to that food.; and so, I say, whatever a man gains by his labour be is entitled to. 80 far the ownership of private property is desirable, whioh admission carries with it the approval of many of the remarks wbioh the Hon Mr Pharasyn made in the particularly happy speeoh he has just delivered, because his arguments in a great measure were in support of the kind of private property a man should properly hold. The reason a man should not hold land as private property other than for making the fullest use of it is this : Land is limited in quantity ; is ia the source of all wealth, the source of all life, and there is so man that lives who oan oreate even the smallest portion of it. Yet at the same time, we must not admit that it is right that a man should retain possession of a large area of land no matte* by what means, us obtained it.