The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1869.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 2063, 15 December 1869, Page 2

The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1869.

AFTER ■ some expert parliamentary manoeuvring the Executive found themselves driven to take their trial on their weakest point, the Otago Hundreds Regulation Act resolutions. The order O

paper was only light in the afternoon of Monday, and the wish of the Executive was that the Railway question, on which it is understood they are agreed amongst themselves, should first undergo the ordeal of being sifted by the Council. We think they are not quite sure of victory on it, but they seem nervously afraid of defeat on the other, especially as they are divided in opinion upon it. We certainly do not think that the arguments of the Secretary for Land and Works bore out the view that he had adopted on the subject. His lengthy resolution was resolved into four distinct heads. The first affirms that the regulations having been initiated and passed by the General Assembly, instead of as heretofore being first resolved upon by the Provincial Council, the latter should protest against that course. It will be observed that this is very ingeniously put forward in order to rouse the pride of the Province to indignant resistance to the meddling of the General Assem bly. The most ardent admirer of Provincialism could not have taken more popular ground ; only strange to sav, in the House of Representatives it was actually supported by men who, through their political career, have proved themselves supporters of Provincial institutions whenever a conflict took place between the Province and the Central Government. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Mr Reid is not now a member of the House of Representatives : but he was j and it seems strange to find one who supported Mr Stafford in his insane raids upon Provincialism standing forward and basing his protest against a good measure, on the ground that it originated with the General Government. This Province may well look to itself when it has defenders of so questionable opinions standing forward to advocate its independence, and especially when we find the Government organ, the Daily Times , weakly blowing its trumpet in. the same direction. We cannot at this moment charge our memories with being strictly accurate, but it strikes us that before the Secretary for Land and Works reposed on the rose-bed of office, he too was one of the most strenuous denouncers of the Waste Lands Act, 1866, when the Vogel administration was the citadel he had to _ attack. We have, however, always given Mr Reid credit for sincerity, and congratulate him that he has seen the error of his ways, so far as the relation between the Provincial and General Governments is concerned. But while this is a beneficial change in his ideas in one point, he has not advanced in other respects. Perhaps his speech -was one of the best that could have been delivered in defence of the policy he advocates ; but it only served to show how weak the cause must be that requires such arguments to support it. Unconsciously to himself, perhaps, he disclosed the virulent animus that is jaundicing his vision, when he denounced the runholders as a dominant class, who used their accidental advent to power in the House of Representatives to pass a measure for their own advantage. This was precisely what he failed to prove. He entered into elaborate calculations, founded upon fictitious data, to show that the amount of compensation to which runholders might be entitled, in the event of Hundreds being taken out of their runs, would be greater than the country could afford to give. His notion seems to be that the only prosperous course for a newly arrived settler to take, is to buy a piece of land in its virgin state, and to delve, and labor, and drudge to bring it into productiveness, just as the early settlers did, who had no option in the matter. It may be the opinion of others that far greater advantages could be reaped by purchasing land that had already been ploughed and sown, even if they had to pay for the labor already put into the soil. In this respect there cannot be a mystery. It is a great pity that many farmers seem to have no notion of commercial principles. If a tradesman goes into business, he knows well that to enter into one already established is a vast advantage to him, compared with the risk and labor he has to undergo in making one for himself. And when he pays a premium for becoming a partner in a firm or a goodwill for the purchase of a business, he is only paying an equivalent for the risk, labor, and time saved. The farmer, in buying improved land, is, save in one respect, in a similar position ; but that one point of difference is vastly in his favor. If he be one who knows his business, he runs no risk in buying improved land, and only pays for a portion of the labor expended ; for, as was truly said last night, no man ever received full compensation for the improvements he had made. Such an argument may therefore at once be dismissed as untenable, and that rejected, what remains! Absolutely nothing. Compensation is the only point on which anyone cares to rest his opposition ; and if it can be satisfactorily proved that, on the faith

of existing regulations, investments have been made which have given a bouct fide additional value to land, even-handed justice demands that, in depriving the investor of the chance of profit by taking the property from him, he should not be turned adrift in a worse position than he was when he entered upon the occupation of it. As to the feud between the squattocracy and the clodocracy, arcades arnho, we leave it to Mr Ashcroft to decide which class does most good to the country. For our own part, we do not see why immigrants should not be tempted by cheap bread as well as cheap mutton, nor why wheat for export should not pay as well as wool. We have no great opinion of farmers without capital, and just as little can be said in favor of poor squatters. One starves the ground, and the other cannot do justice to his flocks. Mr Reid sees more loveableness in his clodocrats than in the squattocrats. Really it is a pity that the whole Province should be asked to take part in a quarrel that looks so very personal, when all that is wanted is an impartial tion of a law that, well worked, is calculated to deal out justice to both.