The Evening Star SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1875.

Evening Star, Issue 3922, 18 September 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1875.

The Parliament of Great Britain has been very earnestly discussing the Agricultural Holdings Bill, the object of which is to give some security to tenants, that at the close of their tenure they shall receive fair compensation for their outlay in improvements. It is very extraordinary that the landed aristocracy should not have discovered earlier that security for investments' was one main element in securing able and wealthy tenant farmers ; still more extraordinary that legislation is found advisable to compel justice, where the matter was quite capable of being adjusted by private agreement between lessor and lessee. The professed intention of the Bill is to increase the amount of agricultural produce raised in England for public benefit : the real object may be pronounced to be to increase the value of landed estates, by having the land iu such high condition as to secure additional rental without the ijeciWi f y, ,xi ihc p;xi't of the landlords, of large preliminary outlay. In fact,'

the provisions of the Jill are so many

inducements to tenan'armers to invest capital, and thus tcave their landlords' pockets. In e course of the debates that have tien place on the subject, there was ammazing amount of sympathy express) towards tenantfarmers on the one hid, and landlords on the other. Flols of eloquence were expended in attapts to settle the equitable relations beveen the two, so that neither should 1 able to take a selfish advantage at the other's ex-1 pense. The public mefit of raising an additional quality of produce off the same area wi also expatiated upon ; but little or vothing was said about making provion for additional comfort of the farm aborers. They were very secondary i the matter. In fact, it is to the disrace of landlord legislation that agridtural laborers have always been regfded as necessary encumbrances, to be teated by the majority of farmers ail estate-holders with less consideratioithan their horses or cattle. That therare many worthy exceptions of both clases is fortunately true, but they only seve to bring out in strong relief the eneral disregard with which farm lab<rers are treated. This is one of the eying evils of landlordism, and has m«fc with so little consideration on the prt of society that it has almost assume 1 , the appearauce of being irremediable Unfortunately it is not confined to Great Britain, but is reproduced in all her Colonies. During the freqrrat debates in the Provincial Councl on the land question, the greatobject professed by the dominant partywas to settle people upon the soil. They talked largely about putting it irto the power of the " poor man " to obain a small estate, but, unfortunately the term " poor man " was never accurately defined. Mr Reid did once venture upon drawing the picture of i man living in his own cottage, havinj a pig in a stye and a cow grazing on ihe natural grasses; a very graphic skebh of one who took care to avoid Dr Watts's characteristics of the sluggari— I passed by his garden ind saw the wild briar, The thorn, and the thittle, grow broader aud higher, by having no gardet or cultivated patch whereon they could grow. Lazy as the " poor man " must be who could rest .contentedly on so lean a property, even such a cottage would be a luxury compared with the accommodation provided for our agricultural laborers in the Colonies. A single man can put up with very indifferent lodgings, and as a rule very indifferent lodgings are provided for him. On most farms he has no means of retirement, no privacy. He has plenty to eat and drink—for that is cheap on farms and stations—but very often better stabling is provided for horses than rooms for 1-»linv<n-g. hoise has hi° r,<j P ttmto stall, but men must be huddled together. There are no cottages on most of the estates: here and there shepherds' houses may be seen, but scarcely beyond this can habitations be met with, excepting rude huts or tents that Maoris would not boast of having built. It is this that confines families to towns. " Wanted, a mai*ried couple, without encumbrance" means, " 1 do not want to have to build a cottage for a laboring man and his family;" and this is the practical way in which the farmer-landlord proposes to settle the country. In the Provincial Council Mr Stout, with great force, compared our family-forbidding system to the bothy system in Scotland. The evil arises partly from the insufficient capital of landlords, but mainly through the absolute control they have of the purposes to which tbeir land shall be applieu. It may be grazed or lie idle ; while, were it State property, the conditions on which it should be used and the improvements to be placed on it, could be enforced. A much larger population than is settled on the land might have been employed upon it had a sound system been adopted ; the revenue, however, collected would have been larger,-more trade would have been done, and the country further advanced.