Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, SEPT. 24, 1892. The Liberal Leader.

Manawatu Herald, 24 September 1892, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, SEPT. 24, 1892. The Liberal Leader.

The Hon. John Ballance, the Premier of New Zealand, aspires to be considered the Liberal leader of the Colony, and in his Financial Statement shadowed out how Parliament might make this colony truly great and prosperous if tbe members would " release the land which is still in the grasp of the speculator." It would appear from such an appeal that the Hon. John Ballance and his Ministers had been urgently striving to get the people to help themselves. As a fact the appeal was only a piece of bunkum which has been shattered by the able speech of Sir George Grey on the Land Bill, 'ihe audacity of the present Ministry, asking Parliament to arise and release the land which is still in the grasp of the speculator, is seen when Sir George Grey says that " the same gentlemen who now sit upon those benches (the government) were really the great instigators of the agreement with the company for the construction of that line (the Middle Island railway). They were the people who really proposed to take two and a half million acres of land from the poor of this country and give it over to a distant syndicate in London, bound by no conditions of residence here, not bound to make any im provements upnn the land, tied down by no bonds whatever ; and at the very same time, in Canterbury they were proposing to give farms to the poor of so small an extent that they would not support throughout the whole year the families of the men to whom they were given, so that these men were necessarily obliged to work upon the lands of other people, and they were also tied down by conditions with regard to residence, and they had no power of parting with the land." This is a very strong indictment, being unanswerable. Tht Government who are continually asserting their anxiety to settle people on the land have, so Sir George Grey sayg, reserved, closed up against occupation by che colonists, six million acres of land to permit one of the stock-jobbing companies to select a million and a quarter acres! He points out, admirably, how the government treat Capital, as against the way they treat labour. The rich man is not bound down to residence, he can come and go as he pleases, but the poor man is sent to places quite unknown, he is bound to live on the land for years, he is compelled to make certain improvements. He is a slave. This is what the Liberal party, who turned others out, have done for' the "working man. The real Liberal leader, Sir George Grey says, some generous provision should be made for the small settler, to make up for the want of railways and for not being near the capital cities. He should go free upon his own land subject to no inspection of Government officers to see that he has done certain things. The land is the common property of all and all ought to have common rights in it ; and it is an injustice to take away for ever the right of freehold - L<»t the poor man be perfectly free to buy his land ; let him be taxed just like another. If you make residence necessary, make it so for all. The Government say they are opening lands and putting peopl* in possession of them, subject to certain conditions and so forth. I say you are putting people off the land whilst you give a block of six million acres to be reserved for years to a foreign syndicate, to come in and make choice of 'one and a quarter millions out of it. I say with the land-law before us we can do nothing. To me it seems a disgrace to civilisation that such things can be proposed at this stage and at this time be imposed upon men who are the owners of the land regarding which these regulations are made.