LAND FOR THE PEOPLE.

Observer, Volume XVI, Issue 910, 6 June 1896, Page 2

LAND FOR THE PEOPLE.

The Hon. J. McKenzle's Address.

The Government were well - advieed in sending up the Minister of Lands to Auckland to reply to the recent address of the Leader of the Oppositon. He may not possess a smooth and persuasive tongue or have the knack of speaking in rounded periods, but he is a practical politician ; and, from long acquaintance with party politics, he is well-armed with iacts and figures bearing upon all the points in controversy. More than, that, he has been closely, identified for six years past with the liberal and progressive land legislation of his party. Ab Minister of Lands, it has fallen to his lot to take the initiative in bursting up land monopolies, and in making the way easy for the people to carve out homes for

themselves under conditions that may facilitate the growth of a sturdy class of yeoman farmers.

A practical farmer himself, who, as he once declared in the House, landed in this colony with only sixpence in his pocket, he stands to-day before the world the architect of his own fortunes and an example of what plodding industry and sturdy independence will accomplish for a man in a new country like this. The land legisla" tion and land administration of the Government forms just that portion of its record which is least vulnerable to attack, and no speaker is better equipped for driving home that fact into the minds of unprejudiced people.

But the Minister did not magnify his own services. He directed his artillery not merely to one point of his adversary's position, but brought it into action right along the entire front. He did considerable execution in retaliation npon Capt. Russell's argument that the Government had sapped the self-reliance of the people and made wide and destructive breaches in that portion of the enemy's earthworks. And he displayed his astuteness of generalship by keeping well out of range of that quarter where a whole series of masked batteries might open out upon him. In other words, he passed by the labour legislation of the Government very lightly with the remark that, 'to go faster than public opinion would be a mistake.' Many thoroughly sound Liberals have been impressed with the belief that the Government have been rather outpacing public opinion in their labour legislation, and they will do well in future to act in that quarter upon the wise old Latin adage ' Festina lente ' (Hasten slowly).

On the whole, the Minister of Lands was very effective in his reply to the accusations of the Leader of the Opposition on the score of sapping the self-reliance of the people. He showed that the Government had striven hard and striven very snccesfully, too, to make and keep the people self-reliant by delivering them from the hand of the usurer, by assuring to them a supply of cheap money, by relieving them from the grinding burden of taxation upon their improvements, by enabling them to compete on fair and even terma for land, and by assisting them to secure holdings for themselves at a charge of only 4 or 5 per cent upon the capital value. He showed also that the Government had taken steps to prevent the growth of disproportionately large estates, and had provided a means of combatting the evils resulting from land monopolies in the past by setting up the necessary machinery fcr the compulsory repurchase of land by the State for the purposes of settlement in the neighbourhood of populous centres. All this redounds to the credit of the Government, and attests its fidelity to the cause of the people and to the best traditions of Liberalism. Mr McKenzie might easily be psrdoned if he had taken much larger credit to himself for his own administration. It has from first to last been distinctly strong and singularly wise and honest, despite all the mud which has been thrown over Pomahaka and other land purchase transactions. Even were they open to the strictures of the Opposition, and the proof of that is absent, they pale into insignificance, as MrMcKenzie forcibly pointed out, by the side of the Polhill Gully purchase.

After all has been said, the solid fact remains that since his accession to office the Hon. John McKenzie has placed 1,487 settlers on village settlements, and 533 on improved farms — 2,000 married men altogether — and settled 11.400 selectors on the land. The Government have spent £857,718 in opening up the country for settlement, and £477,340 in developing the goldfields, and they have, over and above all this, purchased a million and a half acres of native land. All this, let it be clearly understood, has been achieved without recourse to the foreign moneylender."

The Minister of Lands found time to defend the finance of the Colonial Treasurer, and to indicate some of the leading points of policy to be pursued by the Go vernment next session. It was a forcible

and yet temperate speech, full of cogent argument, and it produced an excellent impression upon the crowded audience which listened to it in the Opera House. The vote of thanks and confidence whi«h followed was adequate testimony to the satisfaction of the people.