The Dunstan Times. CLYDE, FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1881

Dunstan Times, Issue 996, 20 May 1881, Page 2

The Dunstan Times.

CLYDE, FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1881

Beneath too rule Of men entirely Just The pen Is mightier than the sword.

The land agitation is deeply impressing the public mind. With, so far as we know, the exception of the “Otago Daily Times,” the entire [Press has declared in favor of the Central Land League and the objects which it seeks to promote, That the runs will ever again be let in such monstrously-exces sive areas is improbable—nay, we will go so fat as to say it is impossible in the teeth of public opinion. No Ministry dare refuse to concede the simple point which constitutes the main, central demand of the League. The runs must be sub-diviiied, and so sub-divided as to sever agricultural from strictly pastoral land, due regard being had in the latter case to provide for both winter and summer country in each holding. Then, where practicable—as, for instance, in Ida Valley, the Lauder and Spottis Plains,the Upper Clutha Valley, the Fork Run, and the Lindis Valley—the system of mixed farming must be introduced, giving the settlor, say 10 acres of hill land for each acre of agricultural land. It is not at all necessary that the agricultural and the pastoral holdings should be contiguous. They might be selected “as nearly contiguous as possible,” as a member of the House of Representatives once put it. But whether the holdings be comprised in a ring-fence or not is but of small consequence in comparison with the incalculable prosperity that would dawn upon the country by enabling genuine and bona fide settlers to acquire land for grazing purposes as an adjunct to agricultural pursuits. Were this effected, bad seasons or overstocked grain markets would but slightly affect the settler. In the one case he would have his stock to fall back on ; in the other, he could feed his grain and root crops to his pigs, his sheep, and his cattle, and cany the produce of his farm to the market on four legs ; and it is certain that until and unless this is done, it will be long ere the wave of prosperity reaches us. As to how this question affects the coastal towns whence we draw all those necessaries and comforts of life which we cannot produce ourselves, therecan bebut one opinion. Theirtrade would be increased a hundred fold by the settlement of the country. The cry, therefore, should be “ One and All.” This is not a party question ; nor a class question, as has been wrongfully asserted by evil-minded persons. The runholders are not a separate class. They certainly do not constitute a landed aristocracy, for at best they are only tenants of the Crown ; and, after the present year, they will be merely tenants-at-will, subject to removal at 12 months’ notice without compensation. They cannot be termed a plutocratic class, for many of their number are far from wealthy, and the wealthy condition of the remainder is shared by merchants, professional men, real property owners, and others. To what “ class,” then, shall they be relegated 1 The k only answer possible is to the class of monopoly-holders, who have obtained the possession of vast tracts of the people’s land (for that which is owned by the State belongs to the people, who ’constitute the State), and now complain that the people want some of their own property for their own use. But we know not of anyplea that monopolists can put forward as against the stubborn fact that their monopoly is injurious to the public weal. And when the cuckoo cry of “ class against class ” is designedly put forth,as it now is,in defence of a gigantic and injurious monopoly,'wise men close their ears to it and press forward even more vigorously in the path of progress—a path leading ever and always to the inevitable and desirable result of crushing the monopoly which is sought to be defended.