The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1874.

Evening Star, Issue 3464, 30 March 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, MARCH 30, 1874.

The land qfieistion is again before public. The people of Roxburgh, smarting Under real or fancied grievances, have raised a cry that is not likely soon to be settled. We have hot the slightest sympathy with the men who have put themselves forward to enlighten Mr Holloway. If they were sacrified to the interests of a political party, it was on© that they bad done their utmost to place in power. . That party acted precisely in the spirit in which the men of .Roxburgh are acting. No consideration for others deterred them from adopting a policy of stagnation; for years they persistently refused to sell land, under the plea that they would not consent to carry out a law passed by the General Assembly ;• and when. at last financial necessity compelled them to force sales, they selected the very tracts that these Roxburgh malcontents wanted for themselves. Had they been permitted to purchase the Island Block, and the other blocks oomplained about, on their own terms, and become squatters themselves, not a word would Mr Holloway have heard from them about the land laws of Otago. He would have been walked quietly over their lands, and shown their Teviots, or Merinos, or SoUthdowns, or Short-horns, and. they would have been loud in their

praises of a land that could feed so much stock, at so small an expense. We do not say this would not have been an advantage to the Province. A time must come when a subdivision even of runs must take place, although we do not desire t© see it on Sir F. JD. Bell’s terms. We have every wish to see pastoral country made to carry as much stock as it is possible to feed upon it; and to place it in the hands of occupiers on such terms as to induce them so to improve the . pasture that three sheep may feed on an acre, instead of one on three acres. This is no idle dream: it is quite within the range of management to do it on much of the pastoral land of the Province. Its realisation may be fostered by Sir F. D. Bell’s plan of alienating the pastoral country at the . value of 10s an acre a very pretty plan, too; it is, for commuting rents of runs and assessment on stock. , One cannot but admire its simplicity, and the simplicity of the legislator who imagines such an arrangement possible. That security of tenure and valuation for improvements on termination of leases, are absolute conditions to insure outlay of capital so to increase productiveness is an economic axiom that only needs to

be asserted to be assented to; and it is alike the interest of the pastoral lessees and the public, that they should feel so well assured of their position that they can feel justified in investing money in improvements. The good effect of the partial security they possess is evident in the hundreds of miles of fencing now put on every run, and of the economy of labor thus secured. The high prices at which grazing rights and stock are being transferred will tend to further efforts to lessen the cost of production, in order to make grazing pay 3 and, gradually, land that once was considered valueless will become fertile through the organic matter imparted to it by its fleecy or horned occupants. But we do not want to see our improved property frittered away at a price that even now is not half its value. Sir F. D, Bell has made a mistake. He should not have told his design, or have put it in a more plausible shape. We quite agree with him that agricultural land should not be sold in large blocks, but we equally object to pastoral land being sold in large blocks too. A large portion of our revenue is derived from pastoral occupations, and we do not see why we should not have proportionate annual revenue for a superior character. of soil. But the great drawback is insecurity, and this is fostered by such' unwise proceedings as those of the Box-' burgh' malcontents and of Sir F. D. Bell. The Roxburgh men, by the course they are pursuing, seek to put a stop to immigration, and thus to force upon the public their policy, lest the public works plan should not be carried out. They know that if they succeed it must be to the detriment of every colonist; and that the interests of New Zealand must suffer to satisfy their revenge—for it really is neither more nor less. Sip F, I). Bell has raised a question in which selfishness assumes another shape. He, like the Roxburgh men, sees the public interest only from his own point of view. We consider it quite possible that both classes of agitators imagine they are doing the very best for the country: but the public, who have no broad acres to monopolise nor fancied grievances to revenge, will take a very different view. Their estimate will be somewhat that of Herbert Spencer who thus speaks of the manner in which distortions of fact are made . another, and perhaps stronger distorting influence existing in the medium through which facts reach us, results from the self-seeking, pecuniary or other, of those who testify. We require to bear constantly in mind that pereonal interests affect most of the statements in which sociological conclusions are based, and on which legislation proceeds.

* * * » » Like tho getting up of companies, the getting up ox agitations and of societies is to a considerate extent . me ans of advancement. As in the United States, politics has become a profession, into which a man enters to get an income, so here (Great Britain) there has grown up, though happily to a smaller extent, a professional philanthropy, pursued with a view to position or profit—or to both.