The Star. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1893.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4767, 6 October 1893, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 1893.

Land For Settlement,

The Tories are determined to make a good fight in the interests of the owners of big estates, and accordingly their organs are' still pealing forth denunciations of the Lan'djjfor Settlements Bill, which threatened, to; a certain extent, those exalted personages. We are told by one of these organs, that it is proposed to take land from a settler who has honestly acquired it by purchase in order to hand it over to somebody who; haß no] legal or moral claim for it. This sounds very well, but, in view of what is known of the history of the old days of gridironing, abuse of preemptive rights, and alienation of water frontages, the lees said about the manner in which some of the land of the Colony was acquired from the State the better. No doubt much, however, was honestly bought andE paid for, at the ridiculously ' low price then asked for it ; but admitting this, the holders cannot be permitted to retain it if doing so be manifestly to the I detriment of the community. That the holding of land by a few individuals in large, practically unutilised blocks, while there are hundreds of persons in poverty through being unable to find a place whereon to settle, is injurious to the community as a whole, no one, save a. selfish monopolist, will deny. The same Conservative authority assures us that it is mere bunkum<to;jpretend that any person who chooses to come to New Zealand haa aa abstract right to the soil. The supporters of the Land for Settlements Bill have not "pretended" anything of the sort, but they contend that in a country like New Zealand there is room for more than about 700,000 people, and that until its population is more than tenfold greater than it is, there should be no reason why any person coming here willing to work should not be able to make a comfortable living. That he cannot, do so now is due, to a very large extent, to the operations of those who, in the early day " honestly acquired " most of the best land in the Colony. Again,4ve are told that out of 66,000,000 acres of land in New Zealand, only about 14,000,000 are held on the freehold tenure, which is held by some 91,000 persons out of a male adult population of 167,000. These figures are apparently intended to prove that there is plenty of land available for settlement without disturbing any of thetexiating freeholds, and that the land held on the freehold tenure is fairly divided among the people of the Colony. The statement is a very pretty attempt at juggling with figures, but it is jugglery, nothing more. It is well known (and by none better than by the jugglers) that the land not held on the freehold tenure consists mainly of mountains, riverbeds, and other country absolutely unfit for close settlement — in this island nearly all of it is of that description. Of the, 91,000 freeholders— 91,501 to be absolutely correct according to the land tax returns, 52,586 hold land in Boroughs, and of those in the country, 19,369 hold less than 100 acres, and 17,538 between 100 and 1000 acres. All these 89,000 freeholders would not be eubject to the provisions of the Land for Settlements Bill, which would have affected only 2028 holders, the owners of properties over 1000 acres in extent. The land held by these last is not evenly distributed among them by any means, for four of them have holdings between 100,000 acijas and 150,000 acres, and six others each hold 150,000 acres or over. It is not hard to see, in the face of these figures, in whose interests the fierce denunciations of the Land for Settlements Bill have been made.