ISLAND INTERESTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4801, 11 August 1876, Page 2

ISLAND INTERESTS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sin, —Ever and again is bared or rises to the surface of political discussion the fundamental but only incidentally conflicting interest of the two islands—the land. This is the all important subject matter of antagonism. In the Middle Island the ownership is solely British ; in the North Island mainly aboriginal, and only partly British : in the one a rich source of present revenue, and in the other a present source most meagre. We know well why the South looks with angry fearing eye as an adversary upon the North. This land revenue we have in hand it says ; we improve our land; we make it valuable ; we wish to spend our land revenue for our immediate local benefit. Mere politicians are legislative ephemera. Will our legislators look only to “ to-day,” or be farseeing ? They look ahead, though Mr. Helps says they have not much time for statesmanship. The general direction of progress in New Zealand, and its probable effects on some great unsettled questions, are obvious to many, and should make our legislation more wise and just. The most important cause of progress, that should be so well borne in mind in the present discussion in the New Zealand Parliament, is the increase of the British and decrease of the native population. The large influx of population from England, and the greater prolificness of the European peoples, rapidly make the number of British to native inhabitants more, and at last, as far as human ken can estimate probabilities, vastly predominating. Then the aboriginal peoples all seem to diminish quickly, so that the disproportion increases at a doubly accelerating ratio. Then the obvious result ; Native ownership becomes trifling, and the land is British owned. The want of land does not keep out settlers, and the power of the natives, so much less, does not deter settlement. We all can see then, if we look, that when the South Island has sold its lands the North Island people are entering into more complete possession of the now unpurchased lauds of their island. What then will be the influence of this condition of the land question ? The more thickly populated South, with more valuable land, -will see itself looked upon with less satisfaction than is the North, with its cheaper and perhaps better land. The overtopping population of the colder South overflows with gradual motion into the lower-lying valleys of the sunny North. Thus then do we see the population of the two islands equalised. This equalisation hastened by successive impulses, caused by flock-destroying snowstorms, for ever does climate vastly influence cultivation. What shall we say then of the motives and the efforts of those who would colonise the South without consideration for the North ? If we look ahead what shall we fancy as the result of their efforts, and what of the wisdom and liberality of their motives ? Will they, nil they, both islands will be nearly alike.

Make the land revenue colonial revenue, and the Middle Island so quickly losing its land possession, will eventually benefit most, and injustice will be done to the North, as the revenue from this island will flow into the South. The South fears it will be despoiled ! Nay, let the North fear. Already has the South double the population of the North, and it will obtain commensurate political power. Let then the North never consent to the making the land revenue general revenue ; let it insist, or petition the Imperial Parliament, upon keeping the land revenue a local revenue as a not easily altered part of the constitution—of a Constitution Act.

It will perhaps be anticipated that the land revenue of the North Island will be greatly reduced by having to pay the natives for its enhanced value. But it will also sell for an enhanced value, and will a high price be allowed to be given for native laud ? Will it be thought fair first to make native lands enormously more valuable by settlement, and then pay for them a proportionately increased rate ?

Sir, these considerations to those who have thought over the matter have appeared more or less clear ; but you know well that arguments want to be constantly repeated, and the more varied is the different expression of them the better. Many of Sir George Grey's personal admirers will regret, as I do, that he should head such a party in the House as he now leads, even though it should be only a party stratagem.—l am, &c., T. W.