The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2189, 13 May 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 13, 1870.

The statement of the Provincial Preasnror, if not encouraging as to the immediate prospects of the Province contains several items that are suggestive, if only the mind of the Colony was prepared to receive them. Even Australasian Colony has been for } ears agitated by land schemes. New South Wales and Victoria have had laud doctor after land doctor prescribing nostrums that were to prove panaceas fer every evil. Land was to be taken from squatters and placed within reach of the working farmers: capitalists were to be set at defiance and every safeguard was provided in order to prevent their buying? large blocks and doling it out by dribblets, at immense profit, to those who would use it. Every scheme that the most ardent squatterenvying clodocrat could devise has been tried, save the very simple one that would have remedied all the evils complained of, economised capital, and provided revenue equal to the requirements of the people without cumbrous customhouse machinery, and without tho burden of taxation. In this Province this simple plan has been at work for some years, and has been doing its work and' teaching its lesson very unobtrusively. It is perhaps not sufficiently complex to suit the genius of our legislators who apparently can only see one way of dealing with land, and cannot grasp the notion that there can bo any method more advantageous to a country or a people than every man | having his own freehold. We hear a great deal of bunkum about land belonging to the people, about the people’s inheritances, and such like poetical figments. This loose sort of talk in political, as well as other sciences, tends to gloss over a great deal that is not understood. The general term, “the people," is a wonderfully convenient one. Sometimes it means the many ; sometimes the few. When a purpose is to be answered, the people are appealed to en masse. When a Stafford curtails provincial privileges, or a majority of a corporation decide on doing some foolish thing, a plebiscite is taken, that the common sense of the masses may check the folly or the crotchets of the charlatans. When it suits a purpose, the charlatan parades the people just like the three tailors of Tooley street, who styled themselves “ We the people of England.” The fact is, that the “ good of the people ” is made the stalking horse for every scheme, right or wrong, of every legislator who wishes to carry a point. Those who have taken the pains to look over the balance sheet for the year, will have noticed that the chief amount of revenue was derived from pastoral and agricultural leases. If the sources of revenue be further examined, it will be seen that there are rents received from various reserves set apart for special purposes, and on the notice paper reserves are proposed to be set apart in order that the rents accruing maybe devoted to other special purposes. In every country the system of rental for tire use of land prevails. In England the territorial aristocracy arc owners of domains from which many cf them derive revenues in the shape of rentrolls greater than the whole revenue of Otago ; most of the improvements in London are effected on building leases j many of the manufacturing towns are improved—nay, almost built—on the same principle j tens of thousands of pounds are invested in Dunedin on similar conditions ; in the neighborhood of the City are numerous tenant farmers; and yet, with all these instances before us of the true v/ay of economising capital and deriving revenue from the public estate, we persist in parting with it at a fraction of the value it will realise at the end of a very moderate term of years. In fact, instead of the land belonging to the people, we take all the pains we can to deprive the people as a mass of all right, title, and interest in it. We are quite prepared to hear it objected that the only inducement for people to come out to the Colonies is the prospect of getting “ a hit of land ” they can call their own. We have heard this urged over and over again, and very likely the traditional feudal notion of the superiority of a landed proprietor to any other capitalist may have much to do with it. We are inclined to think, however, that tho best settlers are not those who come with the idea of starving on their own land in a condition somewhat analogous to starving on other people’s at Home. What we want is a class of enterprising men who come to get rich ; for they cannot enrich themselves by legitimate means without benefitting tho country. If such men bring a small capital, and turn their attention to agriculture, they are cramped for means if their capital is at once filched from them in payment for land at a pound an acre. Tire capital that would work a large farm at a few shillings an acre of

annual rent on a transferable lease for a term of years, is utterly inadequate to the purchase and subsequent working of ground enough to support a family. No doubt any number of theoretical objections can be raised against such a plan ; but in opposition to these stcnds the bare fact that all over the world, when the “ people’s ” interest in the land has been transferred to individuals, it is carried out. The landlords make their terms, the tenants abide by them. The proposed extension of the agricultural lease system is only carrying out a little further this already partially adopted beneficial plan.