THIS LAND QUESTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6498, 24 December 1881, Page 6

THIS LAND QUESTION IN NEW ZEALAND.

A correspondent write* from Nelson to the Londrn /Wy AVw*, under the alwve heeding, ec follows i-~'' R may bo both interesting amt InrtruotivetnKnglhfi land reformer* to know that their battle is not confined to the Mother Country, Kvcn here at the Antipodes it hue to be fought. A large and growing body of Colonists are sharpening their weapon# for ib„ testable conflict. The prevailing deurmion in the Colony has itlted!?!? to W 4l0 ®* f Just a* in poridd of dcmr««»ioti was the Mme of greatest political v/telity. Jf! ease of the Now Zealand land reformers may bo thus summarised j—For many years the governing power ha* been pretty tnueh in the bands ol the squatter* or great land-owners, peso monopolists have skilfully legislated for their own aggrandisement. In the early days of the Colony the Provincial Councils in all the providers, except Auckland and Taranaki, were composed mainly of these iquatlers or runholden, and of merchants who always ran with them, as they could not afford to quarrel. The farmers were too much occupied with their respective tasks to interfere effectively with the course of legislation. Hence a steady increase of the privileges of the squatters, and an obstruction to the advancement of the small farmers. These •Guggling freeholders were called "cooka* toot,” and the one object of the great runholders was to kosp those vast areas out of the reach of the cockatoos, Just as at home we have Scotch land-owners clear off the people from their estates. The Fencing Ordinances and Impounding Ordinances all bear traces of this disposition to favour the largo holder at the expense of the small one. Even the Hood Boards were so worked as to hinder rather than to promote settlement, so that the magnificent made of New Zeeland, which excited Meiers Grant and Foeteria admiration, ore not as useful a* they seem. The rich reap the advantage, and the poor pay the piper. This was done by the system of rating adopted by these wealthy rulers. For instance, a largo proportion of the sheep rune were leaseholds, hold under Government at a nominal rent of, eay, twopence per acre per annum. A rate of one •hilling in the pound would thus bo so trifling as scarcely to be computable, while the email freeholder would bo rated at from Se to He per acre. Again, the innholder’s stock could Owith impunity on a man's freehold until be hod ring-fenced it, but the freeholder*# stock could bo impounded the moment they trespassed on the leasehold of the runholder, though it might bo altogether unfeneod. These ore but illustrations of the squatter role. Some thirteen millions and a-half acres of land are held by squatters under Pastoral Leasee at tbs trifling aggregate rental of £113,000 per annum. £ dosen owners in the bouth Canterbury district shore no less than 437,000 acres of freehold land between them. This loud, if out up into farms of tho average else of those in the United States, would provide homes for 2900 farmers, who, with their wives and children, would give a population of some 80,000 eouls.

A very ingenious piece of eolf-eggran-dicing legislation, devised by the protect Prime Minister of New Zealand, the Hon John Hall, is what it known at the Precrop tire Bight® Bill. For patting up a shepherd’s hat of one room on a ran » 60* acre pre-emptive right wu granted. For every 884 chains of wire fence CO acre* of pre-emptive woe given. The practical working of this one-sided legislation amounted to Ihlsi A runboldor could secure from purchase 329 acres of land for every mile of fence he erected, or, in other words, could for an expenditure of £6O got land for which a tattler would have to pay £640, in addition to having to fence it. On one estate in South Canterbury, known as the Levels, a distance of 18 miles on the west side of a main road wae secured in this way. No less than 8000 acre* were thus held unbought for 10 years, at a loss to Government of t he interest on £2 per acre per annum. The total amount of these pre-emptive* in South Canterbury was 55,000 acres. The outcome is thus stated by a writer from whom 1 have gleaned my facts * In South Canterbury, as in Hawke's Bay and all other run-holding districts of New Zealand, public opinion has been so completely warped that the original end and aim of colonisation, vis., the founding of homes for the people, wae lost sight oft and the run-holders and their managers, so far from being ashamed of the means to which they retorted to obstruct settlement, and circumvent the small farmer (the despised " cockatoo ”), rather plumed themselves on the discomfiture of the unfortunate men whoso only crime consisted in attempting to get what had been the chief bait held out in inducing them to come to the Colony, vis., a piece of land of their own on which they could live and bring up their family at peace with their neighbours, and where their own success and advancement in comfort would contribute to the welfare of the Colony they had settled in.’—'Are wo to Stay Hero ?' by a Colonist of 22 years’ standing, p. 48, “ Now for the remedy. These landowners cannot be made to disgorge their lands; they must then he made to pay towards the taxation of the Colony something proportionate to what their estates would have produced hod they been settled by population. This is the popular demand, and os it has been not only demanded, bat actually carried out in Victoria, the probability is that shortly some scheme for the purpose will be laid before the House of Beprosootalivee in New Zealand. One suggestion is as follows: —Estates under 200 acres, free; over 200 and under 500 acres, Id per aero i over 600 and under 1000, Sd i over 1000 and under 5000, 4d i over 5000 and under 10,000,6 d j and so on up to 25.” Writing on this letter, " Anglo-Austra-Uan,” in the Strop*** Mail, eayer— 1 "It would appear that the correspondent ie on a visit to the Colony for the second time, and that, 'owing to the depression which has swept over the Colony during the past two years,’ ho is afraid that his first' roseate ’ description will not hold good now. Quoting the opinion of a gentleman well informed upon Now Zealand subjects, be says that smell forming will not pay, and that such settlements as Me Vesey Stewart's are not likely to succeed. As this visw is contrary to practical experience, perhaps Mr Stewart may have a word to say upon the subject. The world is familiar with many settlements started upon the plan referred to, and many thriving cities could be pointed to as evidence of their success. On the other hand, however, undoubted eases of failure might be roeomed, either from the unsuitability of the soil for agricultural purposes, or from (he emigrants being unsuited to the work they took iu hand, Tom Brown s party failed, not from the want of earnestness, but because the soil on which they located themselves gave no return for their labours. Had Tom located himself and his party on » block in New Zealand near a railway, or a port, or » river running up to o port, happier results night have followed i and this brings me to nodes a statement of the correspondent under notice, to the offset 'that the fatal weakness In New Zealand farming is the absence of any outlet for the produce’—a statement which, taken literally, would go to show that New Zealand has no railways, rivers, or harbours 1 The absence of 'any' outlet would be a fatal weakness indeed, and a writer bent on instructing intending emigrants of the farming chiss on what is best to be done should be careful not to blunder, as be clearly has done here. No doubt there ore certain parts of the country, which have not yet been mi into communication with a market, that it would not be wise for a small farmer to take up, and which, until they have been openwl up, may be more profitably used as sheep runs | but tossy that New Zealand is without any outlet is to toll nonsense, and to Ignore the great props** which has been made during the tot ten years in regard to roads and railways. Under these eiroumsteneee it would not be too much to say that the advice which the writer I have quoted gtos is not either reliable or worth awob, and that, as a matter of fool, there Ie land to b# got at a reasonable rate, neat 'outlets, on wmoh a fairly iateUtgent famsr »lgW no bolter than

he can hope to do In this country. There (« one assertion, however, which the oorree* pmdsnt males that is likely to do good. In order to Justify hie position he says that agricultural produce Is a drug in the market, and that while barley has h«»n selling at fie per bushel, 'thousands of .bushel# of oats have changed hands for from 1# to I* 6-1 per bushel.* Now such a statement os this cannot fall to attract the attention of sntoti* latere in Mark lane, ami a* New ktealana oate and barley have a high reputation in tbi* market, X should not be surprised to bear that some of them (tabled out to sgsnte there to buy all the oats and barley at that price, or oven at a considerable advance. To this extent, therefore, » random statement may prove of benefit to the farmer# of New Zealand. With regard to land companies, se the writer points out, it is essential above all things (lust the prospectuses of these com* panic* should be reliable and accurate an to details, for it would be in the highest degree cruet to a purchaser, and damaging to the credit of New Zealand, for such companies to nut forth statements that cannot be veri* fled by facte. Under these circumstances an Act might be passed making it imperative that- any land scheme in volving a considerable emigration from the United Kingdom should receive the imprimatur of the Colonial Government.”