THE LAND QUESTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 51, 13 January 1872, Page 11

THE LAND QUESTION.

The " Lyttelton Times," in a recent article, after pointing out that there has been nothing more conspicuous in the Parliamentary records of the Australian colonies than the repeated chahges made in their land laws, truly observes that " all these changes have been made with one object, they represent the various phases of a conflict which almost every colony has witnessed in some shape or other. On the one hand, we have the lesees of Crown land, who enjoy valuable privileges for which they pay in most cases only a nominal sura, endeavoring to secure their hold as long as possible. On the other hand, we have the great bulk of the colonists who wish to see the land turned to account —to see men, women, and children settled upon and tilling it." This is quite true, as regards the Australasian colonies, where the practice of leasing Crown lands has been adopted ; but it is not so as regards those of North America, where no such leases have been granted. We gather also from the same article that the disposal of land

by the State on what is called a system of deferred payments has not answered in Victoria the purposes of its advocates ; and we before knew from the general tenor of the addresses of candidates at the last general election in that colony that a bold attempt would be made by these debtors of the State to shirk their engagements. A demand was made for the repeal of those clauses in the Land Act, under which occupiers were prohibited from disposing of their interest in their allotments. Had this demand been gratified, the grand condition of lonajide occupation, upon which the system might be said to rest, would have been not merely evaded, but set aside altogether. We now find them asking for the power to mortgage their holdings, though their best friends foresee that serious mischief will ensue if they are once permitted to place themselves under the heel of moneyed monopolists. Thus it has happened that a small body of men, possessing wealth and political influence, have monopolised vast tracts of country for sheep and cattle runs, and been enabled to use their political power to obtain for themselves undue advantages ; while a still larger body of men, whose votes tell at an election, are also endeavoring to use their political influence to evade those stipulations under which they were permitted to occupy their holdings. Hence the question suggests itself whether it is on the whole wise and politic, under a representative form of Government, to allow anybody of men, formidable by their wealth or their numbers, to become the tenants of the State, whether as holders of runs, or as holders of land on credit. Either system possesses advantages ; but the question is whether, on the whole, the disadvantages, in a national point of view, do not over-balance them. This brings us to the subject of land tenure generally—a subject which is now occupying the attention of some of the leading minds of Europe, With reference to which the " Lyttelton Times" says :—" Stuart Mill and other writers of the same class have lately started the theory that the private ownership of the earth's surface is a radical wrong and injustice to the whole of the earth's denizens; ' that the earth, like air and water, ought tobe a property held in common ; and that while it is quite permissible to allow of its temporary occupancy by individuals or associations for the purpose of cultivation and improvement, the ownership ought never to vest elsewhere than in the State.' Such is the doctrine that has been promulgated, aud it is a very plausible oue indeed. Like a great many other fine theories, however, it will not bear the test of practical application."

Instead of this theory having only been lately started, as would be inferred from the " Times," it has been advocated in its present form for the last half century in England, and more particularly by Bronterre O'Brien just after the disappointmentand chagrin felt on witnessing the fruits borne by the first Keform Bill. The United States were recommended tosellno more land,but, on the contrary, buy back all that had had been sold, and vest it for ever after inalienably in the State on behalf of its several citizens, allowing no person whatever to have any ownership in the soil, save that of occupancy and usufructuary possession. It was urged, with some show of reason, that land, like the light of the sun, or air and water, was the common gift of God to man, and ought not, therefore, to be appropriated by private individuals. Unlike, however, those common gifts, land owes its chief value to the industry of man. Unlike light and air, it is limited in quantity, and subject to exhaustion ; while even water, light, and air, under certain conditions, become marketable commodities, and are subject to private appropriation. But the grand distinction between land and the other common gifts of God is, that it is limited in amount and subject to detereoration. Vast plains in Asia and Africa, once fertile, have become barren; and, if history is to be credited, many countries now comparatively deserts once supported a teeming population. On the other hand, the sands of the sea, by the industry of man, have been reclaimed from the deep, and transformed into fruitful fields, as in the case of the greater part of Holland.- " Give a man a rock," said Arthur Young long ago, " and he will convert

it into-a garden. The inagic of ownership turns sand into gold." All experience, indeed, indicates that for land to be rendered productive the cultivator must have security of tenure, or, what is still better, that the owner of the produce should be also the owner of the soil. Without the guarantee of per petuity, as Sismondi points out, man would never have undertaken to apply drainage to marshes, to raise embankments against inundations, to fix upon hilly slopes the soil that was slipping away, or to distribute, by means of canals of irrigation, fertilising waters over fields which those waters would have condemned to sterility. The mere tenant-at-will looks only to the present; the freeholder regards the future. Before'a man will drain a swamp or embank a river he must feel that he has a freehold tenure, or a tenure equal to a freehold. The State might do it, but would it do it so cheaply and so well ? Even if it could, it would still have to hand over the land to the man who cultivated it, and at such a rental, probably, as would not pay the interest on the outlay. If security of tenure must be conferred upon the occupier in order to induce him to turn his land to the best account, alike to his own and the State's advantage, what benefit would accrue to the latter by the scheme which could not be secured by means that would less shock existing prejudices ? If the State is to be only nominally the sole landlord, it is so already. According to Coke and Blackstone all the land of England is held of the King, directly or indirectly. "An English subject," says the latter, " has the usufruct, not the absolute property of the soil." Instead, therefore, of the theory of making the State the landlord being new, it is probably as old as the feudal system, and certainly dates as far back as William, the Norman. The holding of land in common has not hitherto proved advantageous to human progress, and the individualization of native title in New Zealand is justly considered as one of the best means that can be adopted for promoting the civilization of the natives.

Be, however, this as it may, it will not be by granting perpetual leases, instead of selling the land on a system of deferred payments as at present, which will overcome the difficulty felt by the occupiers of small holdings in Victoria. This difficulty is one of very common occurrence. It is the difficulty of making two opposing ends meet, of reconciling two conflicting interests, of making a coat without the requisite quantity of cloth; and it is a difficulty which has been felt by the farmer in New Zealand as well as by the purchaser of land on the deferred payments system in Victoria. " Out of debt out of danger," is a proverb not of restricted but of universal application. As a rule, it is not well to buy land, or anything else, without having the means of paying for it. In no case is it wise to buy, except for speculative purposes, more of anything than can be profitably made use of. But with regard to land, this has been the practice in New Zealand as well as Victoria. The occupier, in both countries, has got possession of more land than he has capital to turn to profitable account. This evil the deferred payments system would rather aggravate than cure. A man, without capital cannot thoroughly cultivate more than 10 acres of waste land, but he wants a large, quantity upon which to depasture tho stock required for tilling even alO acre section. To meet his case, instead of selling land in sections of 100 acres and upwards, on deferred payments, grant to him 10 acres in a defined block, on condition of bona fide occupation, and reserve nine-tenths of the block for commonage. From time to time sell by auction, in convenient sections, portions of there reserves, when the most industrious and prosperous of these small holders would probably become the purchasers. By some such an arrangement the State, and the man of small means, would alike secure all the advantages which the credit system offers, without inflicting upon either any of its disadvantages ; and these latter are much greater than our Lyttelton contemporary appears to imagine.