The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 12 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3449, 12 March 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MARCH 12 1874

When Mr Holloway left Great Britain, deputed by its agricultural population to visit Otago and report upon the prospects it held out as a field for emigration, he could not have expected to have been treated as if he were an ambassador sent to decide upon the merits of rival political theories. Yet precisely in that position do the inhabitants of Mount Bengor district regard him. We do not say that the people of the district have nothing to complain of. We do not think they have been fairly or considerately treated in the matter of land. The township of Roxburgh is so hemmed in by large estates, that there is no room for extentension of it excepting by the grace and to the profit of the fortunate purchasers of large blocks, who, at some time to come, will dole out a few acres in allotments at enormous prices compared with what they paid for them. The miners, too, have had their interests disregarded. We protested against the sale of those blocks at the time, but it was to no purpose : the Government wanted money, beca ise the party supported by the Mount Benger people had involved the Province in financial difficulties, and the land was sold to extricate it. The voters in the Mount Benger district were misled by those who professed to be their friends, and whose pretensions they supported, though constantly warned of the hollowness of their political theories. If, therefore, all that they say were true, they would be only reaping the just reward of their own folly. One of their representatives did his best to prevent some of the land being alienated, but he was powerless ; not because there was any special intention to favor the squatters, but because Mount Benger’s own friends had sanctioned a law that gave the capitalist powers of unlimited purchase, under sanction of a political Waste Land Board long since abolished. Looked upon in an economic Imht, the address of the Mount Benger people to Mr Holloway is, to the last degree, imbecile. Regarded in its social aspect, it is puerile and malicious. They ask Mr Holloway to visit them in order to convince him what they say is true, when their complaint is mainly of political sins which are not capable of physical demonstration. If he visits them, lie will see neat cottages and a thriving township. He will see well-fenced properties and every sign of a well-to-do peop'e. He will not see that the squuttoci’acy have reduced the people to poverty, and may have some difficulty in comprehending what the Mount Benger population mean by “ a middle class of happy and independent yeomen, themselves the tillers of the land they own.” Possibly it may strike Mr Holloway’s practical minci, that a class of small freeholders one hundred miles from a steady market, would not he very profitably or happily employed in starving upon the produce of forty or fifty acres of laud, in the purchase of which shey had invested the whole o£ tbfeir available capital; and that very

soon they would be glad to dispose of their holdings to a capitalist, and to become rich by savings from the high wages that must, for many years to come, rule in a country whose resources are so vast and so rapidly developing as those of New Zealand. The idea of reducing wages by the importation of labor is as absurd as the invitation to Mr Holloway to go to see what cannot be seen. There were many who thought us insane when some years ago we pointed out that the

true way to sustain high wages was to induce a constant stream of immigration. Yet experience has taught them that it is true. Population creates wants; wants create work; work commands wages. The reason is not far to seek. It is evident in passing events. When, in compliance with mistaken policy, immigration was allowed to cease, the demand for houses, food, and clothing was soon satisfied. People do not build houses without some prospect of return for their outlay; so when everyone has a house to live in, the building trade must be idle, and those engaged in it, competing with each other for the little work to be done, reduce wages. This took place some six years ago. Farmers do not grow corn without a prospect of selling it. When therefore there are no more consumers than can be fed off a given area, when that is placed under crop the demand is satisfied, and wages fall. Increase the number of consumers constantly, and fresh land being brought into cultiva-

tion, requiring increasing supplies of labor, wages are sustained. Every trade squatting, agricultural, and manufacturing during rapid extension, must concede the highest rate of wages that can be afforded; and as New Zealand possesses the means of indefinite extension, for home consumption and export, for centuries to come, Mr Holloway must not allow the querulous complaints of a few disap-

pointed politicians to deceive him. There may be checks of short duration to our progress; but they are chiefly to be apprehended from European squabbles, which fall less heavily upon us, severe as they may be, than upon those who live by labor at Home. Mr Holloway, no doubt, will imagine that those who have signed the address on behalf of the public meeting are smarting under the grinding tyranny of the wool growers ; but if he visits them lie will find them amongst the most prosperous of the in-

habitants of the district: men who made money when, through European wars, the squatters had no market for their wool, and through want of population no market for their meat. -When the squatters were on the verge of ruin they steadily went on accumulating, and we dare say they will readily own that, had they the chance of purchasing some thousands of acres each of the land sold to others in the district they would be very glad to do so. We should not blame them, so long as the law is as it is. We only blame them for misrepresenting the condition of the Province for the purpose of injuring its reputation in the minds of those who might so materially benefit themselves by coming to live in it.