ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE

Wellington Independent, Volume I, Issue 26, 28 June 1845, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE

To the Editor of the Wellington Independent

Sib, —Having given insertion in a former number of your paper to a few remarks I made about land Agents, I hope you will grant the same indulgence to the following : — A letter appeared in your paper two or three numbers back, signed " Clinker," in which, after showing the necessity of driving the natives off the Hutt, he states that the inhabitants must have land in the country, and we must have producers to cultivate the land. Now, Mr. Editor, I should like to know who the inhabitants are ? If he means the eight or ten individuals in whose hands the whole, or at least nine-tenths of the land on the Hutt is vested ; if he means these as the cultivators ; far better that it remain in the hands of the natives. From the natives, as cultivators, we may and do derive some benefit; from the landholders none 1 Were the natives driven off the Hutt to-morrow, is there a single one of the land sharks who would cultivate the land, or let it so that the poor man willing to cultivate, could make a living off it ? Had it not been for the dog and manger system pursued by the landholders, the face of the country would have presented a far different aspect to what it does now, and instead of every vessel which leaves our port being laden with emigrants, we should have had a healthy and thriving population; for it is a fact that can be no longer concealed, that the mechanical and labouring part of the community, are leaving the colony by every opportunity that occurs. And can any one be surprised that people should leave a place where no inducement is held out for them to remain ; where the price of labour is lower than in England? and provisions even higher ; where the only boon that could bind them to a country is denied them ; I mean a spot to call their own! The Company having sold all their land in this district, and the emigration fund being expended, how is the labouring population to be replaced? I think, Mr. Editor, some effort ought to be made to retain the labouring classes in the colony. I recollect an outcry that was made in the Gazette about concentration : and the means proposed to accomplish it was to appropriate the lands of the absentees in the Hutt to the resident landholders, and to give them theirs in exchange; a proceeding condemned I believe by every one but those concerned. Now, I have a plan to propose, Mr. Editor, which I believe would injure no one, and would more or less benefit the entire community. The Company, I believe, sold their land in London in sections 'of 100 acres. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the sections given out by the Company contain 120 acres each. Now, Sir, no injustice can be done to parties by giving them what they purchased and no more ; the loss would lay between the Company and the Government. Let the 20 acres be takea from the last and first of every other section, and divided into five acre lots, and given out at the rate of one lot to each male adult with the understanding that he is to clear it within three years, and not to be at liberty to dispose of it under ten years; and even a price might be set upon it to defray the expence of resurveying the sections. You would thus have a small village of eight families betweea. every second section, and as the whole of a man's time would not be occupied in cultivating his five acres, his more wealthy neighbours could always command a constant supply of labour besides it would be the means of opening roads to the whole of the sections.

Had a plan similar to this been adopted at the commencement of the settlement, how many a cheerful hearth would now be on spots which must for years, I may almost say ages, be profitless; and many a grateful heart would have blest the day that they landed in New Zealand who have left its shores in disgust. ' I remain, Sir, Your obedient servant, A Colonist.