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Wellington Independent, Volume XXVII, Issue 3116, 6 February 1871, Page 2

The land question has been made a stalking horse of during the city election. Although it has been shown, over and over again, that there are no squatters here, seldom have Messrs. Richmond and Travers addressed an audience without much talk about runholders, shutting up the land, &c. The connection of the land question (in the aspect they have viewed it), with the plain issue now before the electors, we have never been able to discover. The whole of their arguments amount to this . " Elect us, and we will do what we can to get cheap land, not here, where it has been sold too cheap, but in Canterbury !" Positively that is all they have to offer over Messrs. Hunter and Pearce. The latter have, however, too much at stake, for the sake of a mere temporary electioneering triumph, to imperil the best interests of Wellington by taking up such a cry. They are well aware that the revenue arising from waste lands is provincial revenue, and to attempt to lessen that revenue would be an infamous breach of the compact of 1856, and would lead to insular separation. Here, again, " Hansard" comes to our aid ; and we will impale Messrs. Richmond and Travers, these " free-land," advocates, on the horns of a dilemma. Mr Travers (see " Hansard," vol. l,part 1, page 316) has said, " There wns no reason why Canterbury or Otago should not still retain the whole of their exclusive property. In that respect he could understand the existence of a conservative principle, and why Provinces which had been chary and frugal in the disposal of their capital (the land) should be unwilling to throw their property into the common stock with those which had been reckless." And again on this very point "Hansard," vol. 2, page 202 — " I prefer the good faith of a legislature, the good faith of a country inhabited by Englishmen, to the bond of auy law." So also Mr Richmond remarks, " Hansard" vol. IV, page 66 — " I would mainly say that the arrangement of 1856 has been observed for twelve years, and that interests of all kinds have grown up under it, not only on the part of those who bought land at £2 an acre in one province, and £l an acre in another, but of those, who having calculated on the administration ofthe fund thus arising, have acquired a general interest in the permanence of the arrangement which was then entered into. There are only two considerations which could weigh with us bo as to induce us to abrogate this arrangement. The one would be tho common consent of the Southern j Island, — a by no means likely contingency, — and the other would be the disruption of the colony." The electors of Wellington will do well to weigh these words. To lower the price of land in Canterbury would be to break the compact of 1856.

which secured to every province its own land revenue. As Mr Travers justly remarked, to assimilate the land laws and put the revenue of the waste lands of all the provinces into 'a common fund would be a gross v robbery of the property of those provinces which had been chary and frugal of their capital." Yet, Mr Travers now openly advocates tliis robbery, and counsels this breach of faith." Mr Richmond says " nothing but tlie consent of the South Island" or " the disruption of the colony" would justify the breach of this arrangement. Yet Mr Richmond, pretending great anxiety for the unity of the colony, advocates a course of dealing with the land which must lead inevitably to the disruption of the colony ! This arrangement of 1856 rests on a resolution of the House, and therefore, in the words of Mr Travers, on the " good faith of a country inhabited by English- I men," but in order to secure a few stray votes, he now professes himself anxious to upset it ! Mr Richmond talks feelingly of the " many interests involved in the permanent arrangement then entered into," but to catch lhe votes of the proletarians of Wellington, he I is impatient to destroy them ! Our j evening contemporary, after vainly : trying in one column to upset the arguments of Mr Rolleston, the Superintendent of Canterbury, states in another, with an air of triumph, that he (Mr Rolleston) considers the land question intimately connected with the financial policy of the Government, forgetting to add that any attempt to assimilate the land laws, if it involves the slightest change in the Canterbury land laws, will have his most determined opposition, and that he stated lately that much as he had done for the unity of the colony, if such a tiling is attempted he toill join in the demand for separation. The electors will see, therefore, that Messrs Richmond and Travers are convicted, out of their own mouths, of preaching wholesale robbery and breach of faith, and the promulgation of opinions which must lead quickly and inevitably to separation. We call upon every elector who wishes to see Wellington the capital of a united colony, to show his earnestness by not voting for either. If these " free land" advocates say they will make up to the province of Canterbury the difference, namely, thirtyfive shillings an acre on all (he lancl yet to sell (although that would still involve injustice to all previous purchasers), where are they to get this money but by imposing a frightful taxation, the burden of which will fall most heavily on the class they thereby profess to benefit. When the working men of Wellington, now deluded by the cry of " free land," have to pay for dear land in Canterbury, they will see that we were right in warning them against electing men who, begiuning by recommending a " breach of the good faith of the Legislature," end either in robbing the settlers of WeUington for the sake of those in Canterbury, or in bringing about a separation of the South .Island from the North, with Auckland as the capital of the latter. There is time to prevent both dangers, and by scratching out the names of the candidates to-morrow who have avowed such wild doctrines, they wili save Wellington from being deprived of her fair share in the colonising operations of the Government, and her true position as the capital of a great and rapidly developing colony.