The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1879.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 402, 22 February 1879, Page 2

The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1879.

* We hear from various quarters reports which seem clearly to indicate that 1 the Urania for land is subsiding. Numerous instances aro before us, chiefly from the Southj of land going begging at about seventy per cent of what it would have fetched a few months ago. Many causes' maybe assigned for the sudden check' that- this ruinous disease of the coffer has sustained. For instance, the pressure brought to bear by the Banks on borrowers, the continued' unfavourable weather in many paats of the colony, andUhe exhaustion of the slocking and the : credit of small buyers may be named among, other things. We wish we could

asd to the list, a restoration to the full possession of their faculties, on the part ot the public generally, but our principle of adhering to the truth, as far as we know it, prevents our doing ,so. We hope, however, that it is not too late for this district to profit by the experience of other parts of the colony, where freeholds have been mortgaged, hovels inhabited, candles lit in the morning, children kept from school, daughters put to the plough, constitutions broken up, backs and stomachs stinted, in order that field might be added to field, at a price that could only be warranted by a guaranteed continuance of the most favourable weather and the most favourable market. As, however, neithei hope nor faith has boon able to secure these conditions, the money-lender is lord of all he surveys, and many of our best colonists experience his proverbial tender mercies. Very few of the small holders who thus “ grunt and sweat under a weary life,” upon whom the burden of taxation must fall, and who are the foundation stones of our national wealth, have any idea, that in stretching their resources in the mruner we have described, they aao rashly speculating. Yet, while the -disproportion between the selling and *hc letting price of land is so great, it is certain that they are doing no less. Many people in Canterbury and elsewhere have paid from £2O to £3O per acre for laud for which they would not have given a yearly rental of £1 5s per acre. If they could borrow' at four or five per cent, they did the right thing; but as they had to pay eight or ten per cent, clearly they were speculating. That is, they were led to pay more for their land than i't would yield a fair interest upon, when the cost of working it was covered, by the hope that in the not-remote future the market would change greatly in their favour. Let us examine the ground of this hope. According to the celebrated law of Malthus, the population ol new countries increases in geometrical progression—thus 2, 4, 8, 16, &c., doubling itself, say every twenty-five years. While, on the other hand, the food supply in the same time increases only in arithmetical progression, thus—l, 2, 3, 4, &c. If this law holds good, the population will, of course, increase in a far greater proportion than the food supply; so that in a very few years the country would not produce enough for its own consumption. In this case, those who have bought land at the high rates named above, will have a chance of being rewarded by high prices by and by. But we suppose Malthus had in his eye a country that was all occupied, but where the population was not dense—such a country, for instance, as New Zealand will be in 70 or 80 years’ time, or as England was 158 years’ ago. The race between the population and the food-supply does not fairly begin until the whole of the country is in private hands. From that moment the race is in favour of the population, hut until then the food supply will have a good lead. It is manifest that if the population of this colony should double in the next ten years, and quadruple in the next twenty years, the food supply would increase in a still greater proportion. This may be illustrated by the case of the United States’ A hundred years ago the population was little over three millions, but it has continued to double itself in less than twenty-five years, so that now it exceeds fifty millions, having increased sixteen fold. Notwithstanding this, the country still feeds itself and exports probably a hundred fold what it did a century ago. As long as there is fresh laud to be taken up, that will do more than feed those who occupy it, the supply of food will exceed the demand for home consumption. This seems to us to mean that the prices of the produce of the land cannot greatly increase until the remote time when export will be no longer possible, and not till then will the real rental value of fanning land in well settled districts incrense. If our conclusion is a sound one, it will follow that those who have bought land at high prices have practically invested their money in perpetuo at the small rate of interest that the land will yield them now: those who have paid cash are paying a rack-rent in loss of interest and hate practically ‘ thrown away a certain portion of their capital; those who have borrowed at current rates are in a still worse position,-as having no capital to throw away, and having to pay the rack-rent directly out of the land to the moneylender,-who .stand to them in the room of the landlord. What this rack-rent means we all know. It means tnat the most useful’ class of citizens—- , the farmers —shall have their noses continually hard upon the grindstone ; that there shall be rio elasticity in- their resources, no room for enterprise. Ever since the Crimean Avar rents have been rising in Scotland. The result is;- that nearly all the farms recently in' the market, have seen the old tenants leavein beggary and ruin and have been relct at a reduced rate. This is in a country comparatively Avell peopled ; what then may bo expected of the rack-rent spstem here? We can understand high rents 'in a country like Belgium, Avhcre every inch of ground is worked with care, and where the spade takes the place of the 1 plbugh; but in New Zeohmd Avhere r millions-' of acres are lying waste we think they are premature. We hope therefore that our farmers will make up their minds,-that as for many years after they have returned- to the dust, the price of beef, mutton; flour,-and'-,oats Avill'not be \ r ery different from Avhat it is noiv, the selling price of land should not he greatly- above tne sum' on which its rerit&l value Avould be a fair interest, and that they, will resolutely refuse to invest their bald and honestly- got money, at ruinously lo\ri rates,- for the beaefiit - of land sharks arid-moneylenders;- -