Correspondence

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 122, 12 April 1892, Page 2

Correspondence

♦ Has the Individual the Eight to Invest as Fkeely in Land as Other Things. to the editor op the stail. Sir — The services of State and subject being co-relative, as I showed in my last letter by the authorities I quoted, it is then the paramount duty of the State to provide for the people, not only giving security to them of life and limb, but also protecting them against cold and hunger, taking care of the needy and the helpless, and providing the indigent with food, clothing, and shelter. This, the State's duty is inseparable from allegiance ; it is its part of the compact which cements the subject to it. This being so, and it being an acknowledged principle in the constitution since the time of William the Conquerer, that the land must support its people, it is the State's office to ensure it performing its function, and it subverts its most sacred trust when it allows that estate to be monopolised by a few individuals, and the bulk of the land to be centred in fewer hands every year, as may be seen in any district that has been set* tied for any length of time. It may be argued that the land has been bought, and the previous proprietor's claims satisfied, otherwise they would not have sold it. This is true as far as it goes, but though the individual has been recompensed the State has not been compensated for that clearing off the land of the nations wealth, which labor is, and which takes place when holding after holding is taken and converted into one big run. The untenanting of houses, depopulating oi districts, and causing the land, instead of supporting a thriving population, to contribute only to the wealth of one, or at most a few, must impoverish the country and weaken its power of defence. It will probably be asked, " Has not one a right to speculate to the same extent and interest as freely in land as in aught else." I answer: "Certainly not, because all other commodities can be reproduced — the earth cannot." A man may manufacture article after article, or grow crop after crop, as they are required, but he cannot raise another world, or enlarge this one a single foot; so if one gathered to himself all the produce in the country, though he would undoubtedly create a death (may be a famine), time and labour could repair the mischief he had done, but if he bought up all the land in it he would desolate it, or reduce its inhabitants to be his slaves living upon it by sunernace, and becoming creatures dependant on his will. It will be said that such a thing could not take place, but it does to a considerable extent wherever such expanses of land as the Hon. Mr Seddon speaks of, viz : " Fiftytwo miles along the Clarence river " is held in the possession of one man, with such a tract of country that all competition for labor must be shut out, and he can dictate such terms and rule what rate of wages he will give his laborers according to his fancy, knowing his to be the only market for their labor for fifty-two miles round. But still more prejudicial is it to the country's welfare that millions of acres of it should be in the possession of absentees. Can anything be conceived more unjust than that the people's land should be so alienated and have been allowed to pass away from its righful owners, to persons who neither by birth or residence have any claim to it, who take no part in the duties, and fulfil none of the obligations of citizens. Excused by absence from sharing in its vicissitndes they yet fatten UDon the industry of that people whose heritage they have taken. And, as though they were not fayoured enough, it is proposed, by some, under the name of the " Dual Vote " to give them, should they deign to visit the country during the time of an election for the Farliamont, a power in the affairs of the country double to that of most of the toilers in it by virtue of their having to meet a condition always inseparable from land possessions, the paying of rates and taxes. Then let the state recognise that " people for the land and land for the people " is an essential of the country's prosperity, and make it the first condition to the holding of the land to be the residing upon it by the holder. 1 am, etc., S. Knight.