The Evening Star TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3786, 13 April 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1875.

Difficult as it is to change longestablished forms of public thought on subjects of common interest, it becomes a duty, m framing institutions in a n »,r country ; to examine those °l ° t socie^es > *° ascertain whether they have fulfilled the functions they were designed to perform, and how far they are consistent with correct principle and justice. This duty is seldom performed, partly because those to whose lot it falls to frame laws for new societies never entertain a doubt as to the “ wisdom of our forefathers,” and seek to establish the laws and customs they have been educated in 3 and partly because, even if they have a doubt as to the right and wrong of the past, they have no faith in the advantage to all men of following out in practice that which theory pronounces to be abstractedly true and right. It is mainly owing to these causes that so many blundering schemes are adopted to retain a vicious principle and make it work beneficially. There seems to be an innate tendency in men to have a glimmering of what is right, and to go a round-about way of attaining it. If a new road is to be made, forgetful of the object for which roads should be constructed, in nineteen cases out of twenty it is made circuitous where it should have been straight, or taken over a mountain top instead of round the mountain's side. If a custom, is to be abolished, every way but the shortest is recommended. The road engirmpring round Dunedin is abundant proof of choosing the difficult and neglecting the easy gradients. How many tons of thousands of pounds and valuable lives have been sacrificed there is no available record to show. Twice as many horses as should have been necessary are required for the work to be done 3 twice as much wear and. tear of shoes and harness and carnages androadsaretheconsequence—let alone the risk to human life and addition to the cost of transit of goods. It is just the same in social matters. Though bribery and corruption were proved to result from open voting at elections, every method was tried to cure them, excepting the simple expedient of the ballot. We are now daily and hourly lamenting the evils of drunkenness, and yet many of our leading clergy and politicians condemn the efforts of an association whose principles of total abstinence, if adopted would prove an immediate and effectual cure. To the temperate it would be of no consequence, for they care little about drink, while to the drunkard it would be salvation. It is instructive to think on the crooked ways which have been tried to reconcile the opposing tendencies. The law says: ‘We will allow intoxicating drink to be sold on payment of a duty”—which, in some cases, amounts to 250 per cent, on the value. This is called charging a tax on luxuries with the professed intention of confining consumption within

proper limits. Having given this permission to consume, it says: “ But if you get drunk you shall pay a fine of 55.” The law has been thus playing fast and loose for some two hundred years, and the evil is not cured, simply because society ridicules the short and effectual remedy that every man may adopt for himself—don't drink. Precisely the same round-about way has been taken regarding monopoly in land. Victoria during twenty-five years has been devising schemes for securing small freeholds for settlers. Act after Act of Parliament has been passed, prescribing the number of acres that shall be sold to one man, the improvements that shall be made as a condition of deferred payments, and the penalties to be inflicted on those who transgressed the law. Courts of law had to try cases and inflict punishment, yet ways and means have been found to evade the laws. Squatterdom has not proved very conscientious in that Colony. It has set its mind on having the land, and the land it will have. Nothing could be more idle than to suppose that when a government parts with the fee simple of land, they can compel the enforcement of any conditions. They relinquished all control when the Crown grant was issued. All the reservations, excepting that of gold, and all powers of resumption for specified purposes, have proved a dead letter ; and now, after so many years of labor and expense, the * Melbourne Age,' in a recent article, shows that instead of the land becoming subdivided it is passing into fewer hands, that small farmers are selling their properties, that large runs are increasing in area, that the interior is becoming depopulated, and that Victoria, with its hundreds of thousands of acres of arable land, is relapsing into desert. This is only what may be expected to result from the system of selling land absolutely. Capitalists all over the world regard it as a safe investment, and are constantly on the look-out to purchase it. There are cases where this has proved beneficial, as in Vineland, New Jersey, and some estates in Great Britain and elsewhere; but these are the exceptions. As a rule, the system has placed the public estate and with it the control of legislation in the hands of the lords of the soil, and they have thrown the common burdens of taxation off their shoulders on to those of the public. Had the straightforward and simple expedient of leasing the land been adopted, with such safeguards as would have secured the payment of rent and only a representation of the tenantry in Parliament proportionate to their interests, these growing evils would have been avoided. Although we see no chance of such a plan being adopted for many years to come—until, in fact, the evils of landlordism have become intolerable, and every crooked expedient that ingenuity can devise as a cure has been found to fail, the principle should not be lost sight of. Sooner or later the shortest way will be tried in all reforms. We believe, with Mr Bright, that every remedy must have its time to work before moral and social disease will be cured, and that men must become familiarised with the idea of what is needed before it will be accepted as a true remedy.