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New Zealand Tablet, Volume XI, Issue 6, 1 June 1883, Page 23

The Daily Tribune of Detroit, Mich., says :— " Foreign capitalists have recently bought of the Northern Pacific Railway three million acres of land, which comprises about all the lands the company owns, both in Minnesota and Dakota. It is intimated that a tenant system like that in vogue in England is to be inaugurated by the syndicate which has gained control of this vast domain. Here is a retrograde movement entirely foreign to the spirit and meaning of our land laws, and to the settled policy of this Government since the disposal of its public lands became a question of importance. That policy has been to give the lands in comparatively small quantities to actual settlers, and thus build up independent communities, such as constitute the best state and republic. But to allow an old country system of land tenancy, a grinding and oppressive yoke hang upon the neck of agricultural industry, to gain a foothold in this country, is to retard the growth and development of our great resources, and to set in motion a train of attendant evils the number and disastrous consequences of which no man can prophesy. One of these, and one of the first which would make itself felt, would be that a syndicate controlling such a wide and productive area of the best territory in the northwest, farmed by tenants of the old country plan, wonld soon be a monopoly in production, forming a damaging competition to all small farmers. The United States wants no tenant system . within its borders.