THE OTAGO LAND LEAGUE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 993, 29 April 1881, Page 2

THE OTAGO LAND LEAGUE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I have read with deep interest your reports of Mr Pyke’s addresses on “The Lund Question,” the more so because of ray knowledge respecting the land of the interior, and its splendid productiveness. With the assistance of irrigation, this land of yours can be made a paradise of fruits,of corn and oil, of milk and honey. Possessed of a magnificent climate, a soil teeming with vegetable and mineral wealth, few districts can be found to rival yours, none to excel it. To understand this proposition fully, one must be able to compare the interior with other districts, soils and climates, with other countries, indeed, and apply the guage of chemistry. The careful analysis of years of travel, thought and experience, pro luces the decision that in no new country under the sun have the Crown lands been so monstrously, mercilessly dealt with as in this. Sir, as a people, we labor for every breath we take ; as a people we draw behind ns a car of taxation more rapacious than the Juggernaut. We are relapsing into worse than slavery, for chains make not the slave ; we are losing onr self respect, onr independence, our freedom ; we are forgetting onr birthright,the land—the holy, the hallowed thing our fathers gave their best blood for in the old land over the redemption from the burden of taxation ; it is from it that we hope to see prosper ty flow ; manufactures, tra le and commerce rest upon this foundation ; capital and labor, work and wages, are all of the laud, and from it. K-torin in the land train e docs not mean the suppression of sheep farming ; on the contrary, it will increase the number of tenants ; it means a reform in the system of sheep farming ; it will give the tenant a smaller area for cn id rati 'll, from which his returns will be as great as at present and of infinite better qua'ity. It means to give the small capitalist or the saving working man a chance to prove his practical ability side by side with the largo capitalist and the wool king. It means to introduce village settlements, and fruit growers of from fifty tonne acre. It means to promote arboncnltnre, that we may have our shady parks and natural shelter tor our live stock ; that useful timber may become onn of our productions, instead of being one of our imports. It means a now era in .agriculture, when practical working men will be found capable of making small fanning pay, by the application of system and intelligence. It means the clfath of the cry of the pauper in onr land—that mean, insatiable cry that goes up to Wellington every winter for work. All this it means, and more ; a happy people, intelligent, educated, independent, thrifty, redeemed from the thraldom of debt, the founders of an insular nationality, whose name shall be honored, etc , whose deeds shall be sung by historians and in the golden days to come. Sir, this is a subject which calls for all the patriotism, all the valor, all the nobdity we possess ; we shall need our best wisdom, understanding anil application to solve this great problem. Wo must give our strongest, our most united sympathies to those who “ bide the brent ” Mr Pyko must feel that he and all those hardy patriots who go to the front in the coming struggle have the hearty support of every man of independent mind in New Zealand. Woe to this land if there be failure from lack of honest manliness ; it were better had it never been peopled, than that it he allowed to fall into the grasp ot a monopoly whose system is based upon the land tenure ot Great Britain. Is not the state of Ireland a sufficient example for us ? We are free men, let us have free land,—Yours, etc., W. F. Kinnt.ar. Oamarn, April 27, ISSI.