SIR GEORGE GREY.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1250, 21 March 1878, Page 3

SIR GEORGE GREY.

The following letter appears in this morning's "Press ": Sib,—Sir George Grey's friends evidently consider the public meeting at the Oddfellows' Hall on Saturday night a great success ; many, however, who were present cannot but look back to it as a disgrace to a well-behaved community. That the hall was filled to overflowing with to all appearances a highly intelligent audience no one will question, and that Sir George Grey had a large majority of that audience with him is equally certain, but a strong minority behaved only as a lot of larrikins or rowdy navvies might be expected to act. Was it fair play after listening and rapturously applauding the Premier for two hours, to hoot and hiss, and interrupt every speaker who held different views ? One might well say that it was the very weakness of his arguments that made his supporters fear to hear the other side. Friends and foes must admit that it was both cowardly and unfair to refuse a hearing to those speakers who wished to demonstrate the speciousness of the arguments adduced by him. And where was Sir George Grey's much vaunted chivalry that he did not rise up and insist upon a patient hearing being accorded to his opponents? He made no sign or effort 1 to quieten the rowdyism, and it is only fair to assume that he approved of it. Did he practice what he preached when he told the audience that he only wanted a fair field and no favor ? Sir George Grey told the meeting that Mr Gladstone considers the richer a man gets the more selfish he became. Now, seeing that, with perhaps a dozen exceptions, the Premier was one of the richest men in the room, did it strike any of his audience that if this theory is correct, possibly he is influenced in all his public actions solely by selfishness, and therefore it would have been just as well to have heard what the other side had to say to his proposals. No one will disagree with all of Sir George Grey's views, and there are very few who will deny that there is ample room for improvement in the present system of taxation, as well as a redistribution of electoral power. But that his proposals, if effect, would result as he predicts, there is very grave reason to doubt. Is it for the good of the community that an idle, drunken, neer-do-well, should have the same electoral power as a thrifty, sober, and intelligent working man ? Is it for the good of the commonwealth, that the slovenly, idle, and incompetent mechanic shall be put upon the same level and receive the same wage as the steady, industrious first-class workman ? And yet this is what Sir George Grey's communistic theories tend to bring about if put into practice. What encouragement is there for the working man to be prudent and saving, with the hope of at some time being able to purchase a little freehold property, if he finds that so soon as he becomes a landed proprietor he is taxed to support the idler, who makes no attemnt to improve his position, because he is uncler the special protection of a Government whose policy is to tax instead of encourage the thrifty. The very incentive to industry is lost if the accumulation of property is a crime. Surely it is a far higher aim to encourage the farm servant to become a farmer, the journeyman mechanic to become an employer, the shopman to become a trader, the clerk to become a merchant, and bo on, instead of warning them that so soon as they acquire a little properly they must provide the whole of the taxes necessary to carry on the business of the country. It is true Sir George Grey professes a desire to ameliorate the condition of the working man, but so sure as he succeeds in introducing the measures he proposes, the working man struggling to accumulate a little property will find that Government by mobocracy means the reducing of the prudent to a levd with the spendthrift, and will make the industrious find they are merely targets to be slut at and pilfered by lazy idlers they have permitted to be pitchforked into power. Let owners of land who hold simply for speculation be specially taxed if it is necessary, and lot all land owners bear a fair share of taxation, but to discourage the improvement of land by making it bear all or nearly all the taxes, would be doing a gravo and serious injury to the country, and would check that laudable ambition to become a freeholder, which at present universally exists, and which has been one of the grand secrets of the success and progress of this province. Once check this progress, and the first to feel it would be the very working-man Sir George professeß a desire to take under his wing. The Premier talks of the monstrous iniquities of the class legislation for the rich man in the past, and calmly proposes to replace it with class legislation for the poor man in the future. His opponents deny that there I as been any class legislation, but surely if there has been, it should be his aim to do away with all class distinctions : instead of which he proposes replacing one wrong with another. Why should the laws b 3 made specially to repress the land-owner, the farmer, the merchant, or the shopkeeper, in favor of the working-man ? Why not make laws just and equitable for all, rich and poor, if anything leaning in favor of the accumulator of proporty as an incentive to others to go and do likewiee, unless, indeed, Sir George thinks it's a sin to save money ? He bitterly refers to the increasing wealth of owners of land through the introduction of immigrants, and appeals to consider it a crime to be rich. It is unquestionable that many in Canterbury have become wealthy through the rise in the value of land, but what wrong have they committed ? Had land remained stationary in value the working man of to-day would have been no better off. If the land had not been bought, but had remained idle as' Crown lands, would that have done the country any good ? Would the working man's taxes be any lighter or his wages any higher ? On the contrary, it is evident to all that the prosperity of the community—more particularly of the laboring classes—is in exactly a similar ratio to the increase in the value of land. The steady advance which has taken place in the value of landed properties for some years past has enabled this province to fully employ the enormous influx of population which it has received from immigration during the past seven years, and at wages higher, while living is cheaper, than during the previous seven years. A/ook down the advertising columns of the morning papers, and it will be seen that mechanics, laborers, farm servants, houseservants,' &c, &c, are wanted badly. Is it hot .a good thing that although a few men have enriched themselves by becoming possessed of landed property, these very properties are the moans of profitably employing four times the amount of labor that was required a Tery tew years ago ? Once check thui advance in the value of land by repressive

or restrictive legislation, and frighten capitalists from combining to improve their properties through fear of taxation, and laud must fall in value. The first to suffer would be the farm laborer, then the mechanic, shopkeeper, merchant, and so on right, through the community, and we Bhould see similar scenes of misery to those which existed from 1867 to 1870.

The liberal distribution of the land fund has been one leading cause of the rapid increase in the value of land, and although property owners have undoubtedly benefited by this distribution of public money, has it not enabled them to absorb and employ at good wages the thousands and thousands of immigrants who have been introduced into the province during the past few years, thus showing that all classes have participated in the benefits of the land fund ? Sir George Grey has now taken this fund from us, and the effect we have yet to experience. With respect to *the right of communising our land fund I will say nothing, but admit, for the sake of argument, it is the common property of Now Zealand, and I think it can fairly be maiutained that Sir George Grey has done a wrong to the colony at large to deprive Canterbury of this money. Is it not the policy of a prudent man to employ his capital on that portion of his estate which gives the best return ? The past clearly proves that every pound spent in Canterbury in making roads and opening up the country has been returned manifold, while in the North Island the little that has been spent gives a very poor return. Why then should the proceeds of our land sales be taken from the district that has proved it can profitably employ it, and given to districts that are clearly not so reproductive ? We do not deny that Canterbury is part of New Zealand, and if the residents in other provinces find there is no scope for their energies where they are, let them come here, there is ample room for all, and we are quite ready to welcome them. We shall not begrudge their participating in the benefits of the land fund they are so jealous of. We are willing to admit the partnership, but object to the distribution of the partnership funds. If say six partners owned six different estates in which they were jointly and severally interested, and experience proved that one estate gave a better return for the employment of capital than the others, is it natural to think they would continue to divide their capital, and sink it on the estates that gave the poorest returns. The commonsense view would be to go on improving the best estate, so long as it was capable of improvement, and when it could no longer profitably employ further capital, to utilise the surplus profits upon the next best estate, and so on in rotation, as long as there were any susceptible of giving a return for the outlay. A large proportion of the rural lands in the North Island will not pay for cultivation in this generation, and it is a wrong to the colony as a whole to check the growth of a district that bears such evidence of its capability of rapid improvement as Canterbury does, for the sake of supplying districts with money that cannot for years give any adequate return for it. A few years more of our land fund and we should have created a race of farmer capitalists enough to farm the North Island ; but if stopped midway in our career of prosperity the Northern provinces will suffer far more through our depression than they will gain by the seizure of our land funds. We have already sent them a few specimens of our enterprising and shrewd farmers, who have set them an example which has done more good than a few thousands of pounds scattered amongst them can possibly do, and we should have steadily but surely increased the supply had we been left alone, but if we are to be checked in our great work of progress that supply must cease, and the first to suffer in consequence will be the North Island.

i Sir| George Grey uses words to disguise his acts, but let the public be warned in time, and judge him by his acts alone." Our deeds show what we are, our talk shows what we should like others to believe us." Yours, &c, Geo. G. Stead.