HOW SHALL WE GET ON WHEN OUR LAND FUND IS GONE?

Evening Star, Issue 3830, 3 June 1875, Page 3

HOW SHALL WE GET ON WHEN OUR LAND FUND IS GONE?

To the Editor. Sir, —The above question is one often asked when the future of the Colony is under discussion, and is generally put in a manner indicative of a shrinking from a bare contemplation or so seemingly dreadful a consummation. The gloomy forecast is, however, easily dispelled. In the first place, it is not imperative that the waste lands shall be alienated from the State. Precedents can he cited and arguments used in favor of the States’ retaining possession of the land by leasing instead of selling it. In the second place, the wealth created in a country by the cultivation of the land, when in the hands of and owned by the people, more than counterbalances the direct, immediate gain derived bv the State from the proceeds of the sale of the land.

The question at the head of this letter might, indeed, be shortly answered, by merely saying : —“ The Colony will be better off than at present, when nil the waste lands shall have been disposed of.” In dealing with the question there is one fact that ought to be kept steadily in view, namely, that the possession of land does not constitute wealth—that apart from labor land has no more value than the uneaught shoals of fish frequenting a country’s shores. To make land of value there must be population. A nation is wealthy or otherwise in proportion to the amount of labor it employs. New Zealand inhabited by a Crusoe, or Australia by the Bounty mutineers, would be of no more value than a kitchen garden on the one hand, and an ordinary English farm on the other. Although it is likely Cromwell knew nothing ot the theory on which the principles of poli” ideal science are founded, yet from the exigency of circumstances he voted in accordance with these principles when he ordered the enlistment in Ireland of 1,000 girls and the' same number of young men for shipment to the Colony of Jamaica, at the same time ordering the Council of Scotland “to apprehend all known idle, masterless robbers and vagabonds, male and female,” that they might be sent tn the same destination. It was then, as it is now, very difficult to induce volunteer settlers t f > go to the Colonies, although very great ad vantages were offered. The increase in the population of New Zealand has been recently very great; yet our 350,000 inhabitants are but a drop in the bucket as compared to what our population will yet be. Great Britain has a population of 350 to the square mile, and New Zealand only the nearer the population of the latter approaches to that of the former, the sooner will there be an enhanced increase in the prosperity of the Colonial Treasury and in the individual wealth of the community. The more enlightened the masses of the people become in a knowledge of these great truths, the less will be heard of over-immigration. When the population of the Colony was not a quarter of its present number, wages were not over a In If of the present rate, while the necessaries of life are not now higher than then, save in the matter of house accommodation. In the tenth century, the price of an acre of land in England was sixteen Saxon pennies, or about four shillings of our present money, and in 1043 the value of a quarter of wheat was sixty pennies, or about as much silver as is contained in fifteen shillings, wages being then in a proportion of about a penny to the shilling of what they are now. Increase of population never reduced wages m a free country. On investigation, it will be found that wages increase in a direct ratio with the increase of population ; and takin" as a standard the price paid for labor procured from Polynesia for Queensland and Fiji, each suitable immigrant introduced into New Zealand is worth to the Colony twenty times the. cost of his introduction. Our land, however fruitful would oe well disposed of. if bartered for bone and smew. There can be Ittle doubt that werthe land compartively sterile, New Zealand would yet, with sufficient population, have elements enough to make her one of the wealthiest countries in the world. The most prosperous and moat highly civilised nation of antiquity owned only a small strip of barren land on the coast of the Mediterranean, 12u miles long by less than twenty miles broad. Its ships were seen in ail the then known waters, and its prosperity envied by the surroundmgnations. Second only to population are the 1 advantages of communication. Roads, railways, ships, and steamers, with postal and telegraphic accompaniments, are the real benefactors that make: two grass grow where only one grew before, and causes “ the desert to blossom as the rose.” It is not too much to say that the of telegraphic communication with Australia and England, if the wise policy of a low tariff be adopted, will in a short time add materially to the value of each foot of frontage in Princes street, double the value of the Henot Hundreds, and indirectly pay the cost of its construction in a couple of years.—l am, &c., -r, ~ T Urquhalt Macpherson. Dunedin, June 3.