The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3442, 4 March 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4 1874

Ak election usually reveals the questions that are agitating men’s minds. Frequently shadowy and indistinct, they gradually assume form and feature through the prominence given to them. Years ago wo predicted that the land question was not settled. Like the prevention of bribery at English elections, all schemes are being tried to remedy monopoly in land but the one straightforward one; the efficacy of which will be ultimately acknowledged, most pro. bably when it is too late to remedy the evils induced by departure from first principles, excepting at enormous cost to posterity. Two difficulties present themselves, which are acknowledged by everyone. The first is how to prevent capita’ists absorbing large tracts of country, and withholding them from settlement excepting at enormous profit to themselves; the second is how to place bona jidc settlers on the soil on such terms as will enable them to use the capital - they possess to the utmost advantage. Under oar present system we consider limitation of purchase impracticable. This is proved by experience in every free country where it has been tried. It is possible to limit the pre-emptive right on a run to 640 acres ; but after the run is declared a Hundred and sold to a hundred or two purchasers, what is there to prevent the former leaseholder from baying up every acre of it, should he find it his advantage to <ilo so ? Victoria has triedfor years past to limit the extent purchasable by one man ; and what has been the consequence ? Fraud, false declarations,, dummy purchases. Penalties are prescribed for infractions of. a law which presents numberless temptations to being evaded; not only through the case with which it can bo broken, but because it is the interest of the rich and influential to disregard it. Yet still we cling to the notion that legislation will check purchasing large blocks of laud. Wo give free and absolute control over land purchased to him who pays the money for it • and having parted with the freehold, all right of transfer rests in the buyer, who may therefore convey the property at once to one who sees it his interest to give a price for it. A little more may have to be paid for it than if it had been bought direct from the Government j but that is generally merely equal'to a fair commission for the trouble of negotiating the transaction, with perhaps a small premium for relinquishing the ohahee of profit. The affair is one of fair bargain and sale—a legitimate use of capital—and no man has a right to be condemned for it so long as fraud or deceit is not resorted to But the evil is the same : the land passes into the hands of the few.

Next, the difficulty i> to place a bona fide population of cultivators on the soil, and at every election there is much sympathy ex J tressed with small capitalists and farm aborers. That horrid bugbear, the squatter, is painted black, and held up to electoral odium, just as the devil is exhibited in puppet-shows to create a sensation. Yet we are much inclined to think that the lease under which the squatter holds his run is a much more just tenure to the country, than the freehold that a farmer has to purchase before he can put a plough into the ground. How can it be expected that a man with small capital cgn provide money to purchase land, and to reclaim bring it into cultivation? The capital that might have converted the wilderness into a garden is

sunk before be has do::e a stroke of work. He has not wherewith to buy implements, nor cattle, nor to build even a shanty, if he is to have acres enough to live upon. When land in Otago was less valuable than now, he might perhaps struggle through preliminary difficulties by having his “pig in his stye and cows feeding on natural grasses,” but that time is past, and will never return. To meet the financial difficulty, land legislation has assumed a new phase, and sale of land on deferred payments is the quack medicine for the disease. That is : now that the value of landed property is rising in Otago, we are selling it on easier terms. When it was com paratively worthless, men had to pay money down; the price was the same, but there was no trust. Now that plenty of persons would be willing, on an equitable lease to cultivate the laud, and pay as rent, annually, what they contribute towards purchase of the freehold, we give them credit on a payment equal to bare interest on the nominal purchase money, and at the end of the stipulated term make them a present of the land. Between the two systems we think the last may probably work the best, for we consider population alone can give a value to laud : the only point we wish to draw attention to is the question of tenure. So long as an estate is in the hands of a landlord he can dictate the terms on which it may be occupied, and the way in which it must be worked: and so with the State. But let either part with the control, any interference not warranted by the original contract is inadmissible. Even a tax on unused land would be a breach of contract on past sales. ' When, therefore, a person purchases land on deferred payments, it seems a very tempting bait to hold out to settlers to cultivate the soil ; but the temptation may be greater to exhaust it, just as the five shillings an acre land in the United States is cropped until it is worthless, and then abandoned because it is cheaper to take up fresh land than restore fertility to the first holding. Like all quack medicines, .deferred payments may work a cure in some instances; but so far as the constitution of the Province is concerned, the end may be to aggravate the disease—the land will ultimately pass into the bands of large capitalists. Mr Reeves said the land is the people’s birthright. It is one of those common expressions, so often used, that what is implied is almost unnoticed ; but it contains a deep truth. Laud is like air and water, the common property of the human race ; and therefore the community has the right to prescribe the terms on which the class who seek profit by using it shall occupy it. Unfortunately, this birthright has hitherto been dealt with as if mankind in general had no interest in it; and so little has the pri vilege of this precious birthright been understood, that piecemeal it fras been parted with for a trifle, as E SA.u sold his fop a “pjeas of pottage.” Force has made many lords oyer it, law has created many more, money more than both, and habit has led to acquiescence in what force, law, and n.oney have done. Mr Reeves may be right in thinking reversion to first principles Utopian. Perhaps so : we fear he is right; but even if so, and we are to continue to sin against ourselves and posterity, let us do it with our eyes open. ’