Untitled

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 37, 28 May 1881, Page 400

Which of these systems can we regard as most suitable to our own case ? Both are now proved by experience, and both have given profound content and general prosperity where discontent and poverty formerly prevailed. It is a subject we should like to see fully discussed while the interests affected by it are still few, and while it can be considered without the heat which the conflict with those interests when they .are once largely created, as they assuredly will be, must evoke. Sir George Grey has done to the Colony a great and lasting service in arousing attention to it. With the keen eye of a true statesman he looks into the future.' To the mere politician, to the man of temporary expedients and party victories, Sir George may appear visionary and premature. He is certainly at a disadvantage in so far that he is fighting to prevent the creation of future evil rather than combatting an evil that actually exists. None the less is he right None the less is it incumbent on all who love New Zealand to take care that the light which he has lighted shall not die nntil the future of their country is assured — until such measures are taken as will secure it for ever from the reremains of the feudal tenure which wrought such misery in Europe and which are working the same misery wherever they are suffered to exist. With personal suffrage, paid Parliaments, a fair distribution of seats, a system of cheap and easy transfer of land, and a guarantee that all the land, without distinction, shall be rated for local works, we believe the German system to be better than the French for New Zealand. It would interfere less with the freedom of bequest, and be more in accordance with our present notions. _ Nor need the owner of land fear a decrease in its

value if the system were adopted. In all countries the effect of free trade in land, and of its ready acquirement, has been to create for it an active and general demand that increases the money value far beyond what it is able to attain under the system where the few are buyers and the great multitude are thrown hopelessly out of the market. On its great social effects we need not comment. They speak for themselves, and will save us from the misery and homeless pauperism foreshadowed in the Charitable Aids Bill, of which we heard so much last session, and are assured by the Treasurer that we shall soon hear more again.