AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 16 February 1909, Page 2

AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD.

There was a cerjtain incongruity (says the Wanganui Chropicle) in the charge read to an accused perr

.son in a sheep-stealing case before the Court—“ Unit he did steal 200 sheep, the properly of Arthur James Balfour.” We in New Zealand are in danger of forgetting that our country has amongst its landlords that amiable English aristocrat who is at present engaged in ruling Great Britain per medium of the House ol Fords, and whose chief delight at present seems to be to order his willing peers to pounce upon and destroy any measure that the People’s House think lit to pass by an overwhelming majority. The incongruity of the position as far as New Zealand is concerned seems to lie in the fact that in spite ol our much-advertised democratic land policy a gentleman who has never seen our country, and who probably only knows it through the medium of his manager and his acquaintance with sundry New Zealand politicians, has for twenty years or more been drawing a generous income from the backs o( ten thousand odd sheep, which are reared on the rich pastures, adjacent to the Borough of Pahialua, and known as the Balfour Estate.