The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1879.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5737, 19 August 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). TUESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1879.

Sir George Grey succeeded in making a very popular address on Saturday night to just the sort of audience ■which best suits him. One unfortunate gentleman who tried hard to get in a word edgeways was hooted down, and only thick-and-thin Greyites stood a chance of a hearing. We have neither time nor inclination to follow the Premier through his stale and dreary falsehoods about the 65,000 disenfranchised electors, nor to point out the violent attack upon property and capital, on which he dilated with so much pleasure. When Sir George Grey has succeeded in setting the poorer classes at war with the richer, he doubtless hopes to retire to the calm solitude of his magnificent property at Kawau and gaze at the strife in a spirit akin to that which moved Nero when he gazed on the burning ruins of Rome.

As an instance of the utter unreliability of Sir G. Grey’s assertions, we make the following extract from the verbatim report of his speech which was published by our contemporary. Sir George said ;— ‘ ‘ The Land Tax Act says this ; “ That a man is only taxed whose “ property is worth £SOO, exclusive of “ improvements ; that is, the bare land, “ without any improvements, must be “ worth £SOO before the owner is called “ upon to pay anything at all. Suppose ‘‘ he spends £4 an acre in improving his “ land, the property must be worth £2500 “ before he pays anything, and then it “would be only upon £2000.” This is entirely false. The Land Tax Act says that a man must own £SOO worth of bare land without improvements before he Is called upon to pay any land tax at all. Whether he has spent £4 or £4O an acre on improvements upon it, he will still only pay land-tax upon the bare unimproved value of the land. Hundreds »f instances must be known to all our readers of wealthy men who, because the land upon which their houses stand is not worth more than £SOO, are exempt from the payment of all land-tax.

In accordance with Sir G. Grey’s instructions we have pondered his words over in our minds, and we are unable to agree with him that the two great sources of capital are “ the earth—dumb and “senseless absolutely,” and “the “ millions of human beings with “ appetites, with passions, with hopes.” There are thousands of acres of land on which not a single human being could possibly scrape an existence, without the aid of that special but innocent object of Sir G. Grey’s hatred—the sheep—from which the wealth of England, as represented by the woolsack seat of the Lord Chancellor, was formerly derived, and from which considerably more than half of the whole income of New Zealand is now derived. It has been denied that Sir G. Grey desires to establish class legislation, or to set class against class. But ou Saturday he said in one place—“ Well, in truth “ the small farmer pays nothing at all “ac the present moment. The land tax “ does not touch the small farmer.” If this is not establishing a favored class we do not know what the term means. But it must not be supposed that these small farmers are expected to rest content with small areas. A little further on Sir G. Grey said

Supposing that the lands on the West Coast were allowed to be occupied by young New Zealand born men—young' men who wanted to marry or were married—supposing they were allowed to take them up in small farms on condition of residence, a certain number of these men would fare better than the jothers and they would want larger farms. I say it is essential to a plan of chat kind that the native lands in the vicinity should be open for sale in farms of from 300 to 500, or 600 acres in extent, so that those men who had done well might spread into the interior and locate themselves upon larger farms and upon better land. To do that is to open up a field of industry— a field of hope to all. The old man was talking nonsense, but he did not know it. An average estate of 500 acres on the West Coast would be worth, without stock, from £IO,OOO to £15,000 at the least now, and might any day become worth nearly double that amount. Sir G. Grey proposes to increase the aristocracy of wealth and to multiply the large land owners and capitalists, not to establish a class of small farmers.

Speaking of New Zealand, Sir George Grey said —“There are a large number “ of the inhabitants of the country who “ are in possession of small estates which “ they cultivate. Every one of these “ families accumulates capital—accumu- “ late among them a vast of amount of “ capital.” We do not believe a word of it; there never was a class of people yet, outside of fairyland, where every one of the families accumulated capital. It is not worth while to point out any more of the glib fallacies which Sir George Grey tried to force down the throats of the working men of Wellington. We ask them to consider what he told them about his future policy. Did he undertake to say what he would do if his party remain in power, and the three great measures which he talked of were passed? Did he promise or suggest that the new Parliament should be at once dissolved, and another one elected under the amended laws? Did he say whether he would support Mr. Macandrew’s scheme for separation, and the setting of the North Island with its 300 miles of railway, and the South Island with its 800 miles of railway, in opposition to one another ? No. He scorned to descend to the practical realities of every day life. One word of truth he did say in explanation of his miserable failure as a Premier of New Zealand, with only one miserable specimen of class legislation to boast of as the outcome of his work. He said: —“Myself and my friends desired “ to introduce great economy in the ad-

“ ministration of the affairs of New Zea- “ land, and very large reductions indeed “ have been made, much more so than “ the people generally know ; but we were “at once met with this difficulty; AVe “ were in a House elected under a Go- “ vernment hostile to ourselves ; we were “in the House really always in the “minority. AVe dare propose no great “ measures, being certain that if we did “so the moment they were proposed we “should be turned out.” Neither he nor his friends have the courage of their convictions. He admits that they dared not propose the great measures talked so much about, for fear they should be turned out of office.