Thoughts for the Times

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 117, 15 November 1893, Page 2

Thoughts for the Times

(By H. 0. Wilson, Waituna.) . Herewith 1 take leave to give a few reasons why farmers should not vote for the present administration at the coming general election. It will be well, in the first instance, to nolo some of the measures introduced of late, having special reference to country interests. For rank folly, the Noxious Weeds Act takes the palm ; its absurd provisions made it the laughing stock of the colony. ,-■..* The Land for Settlement Bill, as introduced by the Hon John McKenzie, was framed to take away a settler's homestead, not for any national purpose, such as mining, railways, roads, etc., but for the benefit and occupation of other colonists, and, without using hard names, I venture to ask any respectable worthy farmer if it was a proper thing to attempt to throttle the fixity of tenure, and, by legislative enactment, to turn a man off his own place, perhaps in the declining years of his life, after having reclaimed a home from the wilderness, indexing and commemorating his early struggles, his labor, and his thrift Indirectly the Government have shown their hostile feelings to the country settlers, by refusing to grant Electoral Rights to women ; indications seem to point to a still greater political power in the populous centres, whereas, if females living at inconvenient distances possessed the privilege of voting through the post, they would be placed on a more equitable footing with the women dwellers in the towns. A reference to the financial statements of the two last sessions, intimate the intentions of the Government, at the first opportunity, to discontinue the subsidies to local bodies. It is patent to all that considerable relief might have been afforded to country settlers, by using the surplus ora portion of it, in remitting customs duties; but the treasurer resolutely declined to grant any relief in this direction. I say that the country settler is a loser by the trifling exemption made in his favor under the Land Tax, so. long as he continues to pay excessive rates for imported goods; in other words be had better pay, say a small fixed amount in a direct form, than pay through the customs ; not only the duties required by the state, from all classes "for governmental purposes; but in addition, the merchants and retailers profits superadded to the customs rates; for by the time the imported article reaohes the country settler, the duty charges are indirectly increased to an indefinite amount. Now a word in relation to the Land Act of last year, in connection with the eternal lease; no doubt many persons who have taken up bush sections under this system think they are in for a good thing with a four per cent rent on capital value. Anyway they did wisely to get the land while it could be got upon any conditions, trusting to some future administration giving an alternative tenure, with a right of acquiring the freehold. I look upon the 999 yearsystem as a mere emergency, as a mere bid for political support. Your space will not permit of a dissertation on the economic difference in values, of land tenures, but it will not be out pf place to note the tendency of the sham Liberalism of to-day, and to bear in mind that, under the present regime, no landed interests are safe,, no tenure is secure, I take it the Minister for Lands nmst feel exasperated when he reflects upon the bare results of his vicious dummy hunting. Are electors of this district aware that the refusal of the Government to take steps for the taking over of the Wellington-Manawatu Railway means a loss to settlers of £6000 annually .in double terminal charges ? The tendency of the Labor Bills is in many respects a pernicious one, and very shortly a man will require a legal training to enable him to conduct the ordinary affairs of daily l(fe. In conclusion, 'it will be wise, and prudent for every voter to remember that our liberties as. a free people have, during the recent session, been intelligently and patriotically safeguarded by the Opposition, to whom the country owes a debt of gratitude for averting spine dangerous features of a reckless class of legislation,