MR BRIGHOUSE'S LETTER.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2174, 22 December 1875, Page 4

MR BRIGHOUSE'S LETTER.

• (To the Editor-of- the Evening Star.) - ,SiE,~Mp, Brighouse's letter in your. Saturday's issue may hate a to influence.the votes, of, the classes —to which" I belong—in'-this manner. "We want the land ; Sir George Grey will ..secure large•■blocks for us ; we will vote for^him. .That astute politician,judging human.nature,well and knowing,the earthhunger of the industrious classes for land, placed-his scrip on the market-in first class style : the Thames Valley Eailway and opening the lands'! Promises —mere empty 'words. Granted he' may -be sincere, he "could not get it done. Now what measure did he Succeed in carrying through last session? Nothing beyond -obstructing the business of the country. His followers talking againstftime, reading stale extracts, from newspapers with the avowed intention of preventing the passing of a measure which the voice of the country as represented by 3 to 1 declared should, be the law 1 of the land.! In Auckland be states if a few earnest men would stick to Him Provincialism in some form should remain., Clearly then li© means going down to fight. Had_ we not better send down "two representatives conciliatory in their policy to the Ministry, with the watchword, one Government and one revenue? The policy Mr _Firth shadows forth, grand in its conception, as it would be magnificent in its results. Sending down members who would wait upon the Government saying —" We will support you in these measures for the good of the whole Colony. In the meantime our district is suffering a temporary depression ; our people are very much in want of work ; assist us to tide over our difficulties. We hare immense resources which will return cent per cent for any outlay you may make." This, I would respectfully 'submit, would be a better course of procedure than sending a representative armed to tlie teeth. On the one hand we should be- securing a desirable measure for the good of the whole Colony, and a chance of semiring work f for our men;' oh the other band" we will receive nothing but defeat^ to 1 against Sir George Grey; and with this prospect before us, that while he was fighting we would be starving. Men that want, work don't usually carry, a blunderbuss about to the terror .of their employers. That' is. what we should do if we return.aProvincialist. It would be cruel and'cowardly in; me, sir, did I not give" the result-of the experience of rabout thirteen hundred men from Victoria, who came over at the invitation of Sir George Grey and the [New Zealand Government to settle on the, land. I beg to observe .there were three thousand altogether" from the adjacent colonies, but I will only speak of the section I was connected with. I believe Mr Brighouse to be sincere in his desire to benefit us, and I think he Will .pardon me when I tell him he is utterly wrong ;, and, it, is a cruel delusion to lead the working classes to suppose they can mike, k living upon land, even if they got it for nothing. Presumably, the classes. he is writing about are without means of any kind; that I <.*. gather from his . former .letter; then, how ,-on earth can they go., on land? I :am aware that- under 'difie-' rent conditions men - -without . capital have made homes, but I afraid we are too far gone at present to derive any benefit from land- Why, it requires talents of the first order and any amount of capital to make it a success. I believe and hope that-the whole landed estate of New Zealand, every- acre of it, wjllbe returned to,its. xißhtful owner— th'te Crown.—in r trust: for the - whole.,,peo-; pie, not ; a'small section 1 of them as at present. The ignorance only of the workers^prevents; that,,cpusummation.;. I have the supreme satisfaction of knowing that an almost equally hopeless case succeeded, which in years gone by I assisted: with my little mite. I allude to the Victorian squatters-and Orders in; Council. An avalanche of free, selectors came, down upon them, and the pleasant places that knew-them, know them no more. 7 Now, ; with regard to the land, we were to re; ceive.so acres and; 12 months',food for ouj* services : the section 1 1, belonged to, mustering in full 'some 1200'^men, many with wives and families^ Now, sir, what was f .the result? When I left the beautifulcity .of Gambridge./lthe. side of the river on. wHch. I used to linger contained just three families, and the wholo settlement at- present contains some 25, or 30 at the outside, of the original settlers. I speak nothing of the wild and hopeless struggle for success that never came, nor of Mr Williamson's 40 acre system that has been carried on for years,: simply asking'what Ms. becomeof all'the money these men* brought 'with* them? Auckland, the, sucker, has been living for years on the money men have been deluded to bring to her shores, and they want to '■ continue the same game; and having secured the services of a real live knight they are-prepared to suck-the vitals out of Ithe whole colony. There is no mistake about her being a white elephant. Comparatively speaking,, she produces!nothing-^ not enough' wheat to feed her own fowls, so.I have read in the columns of the Southern Cross., Certainly there 5 is'Ohlson's Sauce Manufactory; and the Fire Kindler arrangement, and that I is about\all.: Tbeni whyJ ; ally>foiirselves with such a people as these ; better cut the painter at once when'there is a chance, and stick to Mr.Firth's pi'iiiciples—One Colony and One Revenue. l!t ;....,. G. A. Reddish. Shortland.;' '- ' ■■■ {;- ; ■