THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE DANDS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1167, 11 July 1884, Page 4

THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE DANDS.

We make the following extract from the Hon. Mr HoUeston's speech at Geraldine, It should be read and thought over by every elector: — He had had a large experience ot - the land question from o> e end of the Colony to the other, and he plainly naw that if the lauds of the Colony ’were to be conserved in such a way that the population coming into ai d growing up i-i ihe Coh-ny should have a chance of settling upon them, that they should not bo alienated, should not be allowed to fall into the hands ot speculators, middle-men, and land sharks.—(Hear, hear) Some candidates were advocating that all the lands should be thrown open tor free selection. That was exactly what was done under the old system, and the eyes of the countiy were picked out. It was true that, from the, formation of the country, the landsof Canteibury were more fully settled than other pa>ts of the Colony, but they did not contain one hundredth part of the population they ought to do. There were huge estates held by companies and individuals which rendered settlement impossible, except atprices which people could not afford to pay fir profitable occupation. It could not be said that the principle of free selection had woiked no ill,, when 1,370,000 acres of the best lands in the province were held by ninety one holders, in blocks of over 5,000 acres. These blocks might ..eventually be well settled, but in the meantime a very large number ot people must lead a life of very considerable disappointment. All experience pointed to a different mode of dealing with the land. Everyone acquainted with the country knew how difficult it ■“'as for a working man who had made a little saving to obtain land on which to build a cottage, except of very poor ■character aud in very small qualities. He had beenaccused of being a disciple ■of Mr George, of being a theorict and a visionary, and that the course he ’had taken elsewhere in the Colony bad been productive of want of confidence, and had driven capital out of the •country. If it had driven away «api ■tal sent to be invested speculatively, from the purpose, or with the result ■of holding land against settlement, he was not sorry for -it. He would, not be at all sorry if any course he had taken had prevented the increase of •the class ofmiddlemen and speculators •to-stand between the Government and the population who desired to prolita’bly occupy the land. He had been accused of trying to do away with freehold-tenure. He had no such de -sire; no desire to what was called nationalise the land, but what he did •desire was to e tablish a tenure of perpetual lease upon a certain portion ot the land still remaining to the Crown, to secure that the lands should be belli ; by the largest possible number of people. His idea was that the lands ishould be classified into their classes—’the purely pastoral, the partly pas total, partly agricultural, and the agricultural lands. He would not alienate another acre of the pastoral lands. Considering the borrowing the Colony had gone in for, it was highly desirable that the land revenue should be conserved and made the most of for the benefit of the countiy. At present the revenue from pastoral lands ws about L 175,000 a-year, or, including some education reset ves in Otami, about L 200.000. His idea was that the pastoral ti units should bo kept ns graziers The evil of the past had been the toning pastoral tenants to purchase their lands and become s eculator« as well as graziers. The tenant of pastoral lands should have such a tenure given him as would enable him to pursue his vocation of wool growing without embarrassment,' Unfortunately the pastoral tenants had been forced to buy their lands, and crippled themselves in so doing, and at ihe same time they took the agricultural lands out ot the hands of the people. The lands he called semi-pastoral—of which there were large areas not far away—should be dealt with as proposed in a Bill he brought clown las session, in blocks of about 5000 acres, i his class of laud would comprise gome that was capable of lining ploughed,and die rest would be capable of improvement by sowing grass and otbei wise. I hese, in his opinion, should be In Idmnlerperpetual lease, with valuation for improvements, practically putting a uremium on the value of the hia ds by tho.se who held them. Koine blocks would be held by men who hj id made their means at shepherding, and who would I uudeistand their business, ami who would form a race of people who would live in very great comfort. Some such countiy had ueen disposed of in the Souih under what was called the pastoral deferred-payment System. That system undei which the land was finally a-hunted wa , he believed, a very wasteful S' stem. They bad tried itiu the Ninth, and some of the land went for less than it wont I have brought foi cash In tha ,o the same system had led to dummyism, and other abuses; what was wanted for such lands was perpetual h-asing. With regard oar mil ur I land, li a friends would alo., it n b- thrown o ien, si chat anyone could t-kn what he wanted, fie cmild illustrate what would occur if that system weiefo - lowed by reference the Waimale Plains, in the North Island. There 71,000 acres, which under such a system would have fallen into th • hinds f was n«-w ocou-

pied by Nome 3GO settlers upon residential conditions. It' was only by making residence ooaipnlsory. that the land could be properly settled or kept out of the hands oL speoulittbiß and land monopolists. —l A pplause). fa the last four yeiii’s there had.teen settled on residential conditions no leas than 7,377,500 *ores by some 4000 sett lei's. That meant 4000 homesteads, and it they pictured to themselves what that meant, as compared with the areas in their neighbourhood, where hardly a homo stead was' to be seen for miles, they would say that was a work of which any man might well be proud. During the last ten years there had been some 16,000 settlers put upon land under residential conditions, besides the land sold for cash. So long as he had any voice in public matters he would raise it tn say that there was no question of such vital importance to the people of New Zealand as the disposal ot the land in such a way as to prevent monopoly, and to prevent those evils which had accrued from allowing the laud to fall into the hands of speculators. They might say what was that- to them! there was no land here to sell That was true, but he wished them To recognise the fact that the settlement of a settler anywhere in New Zealand was of so much consequence as if he were put at their own door.—-(Hear, hear.) They were much bound together by indebtedness and by sympathies that it was impossible for them to ignore the relation they bore to the body politic of New Zealand, Perpetual leasing seemed to be a bugbear to the people of the North. It had only been in operation about eighteen months, and some 159 selectors had been settled upon about 35,000 acres ot land, the rentals varying from Is to 2d 7d, and for t few choice sections 5s per acre. These lauds were to be held for thirty years at these rentals, and at the end of thirty years the improvements and the quit rent would be valued to them, and the holders won d be allowed to take the land, upon a valuation determined between themselves and the Government, for another terra of thirty years, and so on in perpetuity-. To' anyone who knew hi.-> business as a cultivator, no greater boon could be given than a secure tenure of that land, and when they con.-idered that the absolute alienation of land for cash brought it under the operation of speculators, and that the letting of laud under residential conditions afforded an opportunity for profitable settlement such as never before, be believed, had been given in any countiy, they would see at once the immense difference in favor of the leasing system. The system of perpetual leasing should also bo extended to the educational reserve, so that the holders would know what they had to expect fora the Commissio :ers, which in many cases they did not now do,