Poverty Bay Standard. Saturday, December 3, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1007, 3 December 1881, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard. Saturday, December 3, 1881.

Those of the candidates who claim it a virtue to be adherents of the present Government, and who are advocates of the universal leasing, or “ nationalization ” of our Crown Lands —like “ Land Ho!” and others, would do well to remember —if they make this a prominent question on their election ticket, and advance it as a reason why they support the Hall Government —what the Premier’s opinions, and, consequently, those of the Cabinet, are on the matter. In his speech before the electors at Leeston, recently, in dealing with the land question, the Hon. John Hall said: “ There were also candidates who seemed to have pride in propounding what they called new theories, which theories they probably did not understand, even if they had tried to study them. One such theory was that great gain—especially as to taxation—in the future would flow from leasing instead of selling Crown lands. He doubted whether, even if this were done, the supposed gain would be realised. He was sure that the aspirations of men (who were capable of doing good for themselves, if settled on the land,) were to be freeholders, not State tenants ; and he did not doubt that if leasing were substituted for sale, the effect would be speedy and great in checking improvements and therefore retarding the real progress.” We pointed out some time ago that turning the inhabitants of the earth into nations of tenants, even with a long term, as proposed by Mr. Locke, of 999 years, would end in moral and physical disaster; it would destroy, at once, the dependent, and independent spirit of men, and transfer the real power of the people from themselves into the hands of an autocratic Government. We are, therefore, glad to find that the head of the Government of this Colony has given a lucid exposition of the matter at this critical time. We much fear there is a good deal of truth in Mr. Hall’s remarks about the “ new theory ” idea ; and that our local candidates, especially, are riding a new-found steed to death. “ Land for the people ” will always be a popular cry; but what does landfor the people really mean ? Surely not that the people are to be “ nationalized ’’ out of, and not on to their laud. “ Land for the people ” means (having due regard for that people’s rights—the means of undue monopoly by the few, to the hurt and injury of the many, being curtailed) that every person should claim as a right to become possessor of the soil, in fee simple,according to his absolute require mentsas a means of subsistence. Nothing more, nothing less. “ Land for the people means ” that hundreds\)f thousands of acres are not to be shut up for deer-stalking, and park luxuries, by one man, while thousands and millions of men, women, and children starve. “ Land for the people ” means that the accident of wealth shall not give to one man vast possessions to hold them in entail, from generation to generation, and let them, without the power or hope of purchase, to tenantries, at enormous rentals. “Land for the people” means that the people themselves, and not a vicarious Government, shall possess it. It means that every possible facility shall be afforded to poor and rich alike to acquire and possess ; that all shall bona fide occupy, but that no one shall be allowed to monopolise or waste, or let lie idle, or be immediately unproductive, large areas, while the masses are in want of small holdings. In speaking of New Zealand, MiHall said he did not think this colony would ever be monopolised by large estate holders ; but we differ from him there. It may not be yet, but the greed of “ earth-hunger ” has been fastening its fangs on the vitals of the people’s patrimony for years, and those that are to come after us will, unless our law-givers prevent it in time, reap the fruits of the evil seeds we are sowing. Mr. Hall says “if the owners consulted their own personal ‘ interests, they would themselves “ ‘ burst up ’ such estates.” So they do. But we must not forget that it is the consultation of that very interest that makes them acquire more land than they want, or can make use of, to hold it to the exclusion of the masses, and “ burst up ” their estates ■so soon as the “ unearned increment,” and their neighbour’s iudustry, have made them valuable. It is not the “ bursting up ” of large estates that a young and flourishing colony wants to see It is, rather, the aggregation of small ones that need no such ulterior process to give land for the people. We do not say that legislation should be of that contracted form as to prevent capital from investment; and capital is, after all, a question of financial degree. We see no reason for nationalizing the land on the one hand, nor for prohibiting one man from possessmg a larger block than his neighbour on the other. The prime difficulty appears to be not so much in curtailin'a man s possessions without injury to himself, as in justly preventing him from locking them uptothe endof time, to the injury of his neighbour. This 1 t direction to which our legislators should turn their attention, and not to granting millenium leases, and turning, our State officers into a perpetual Oligarchy of landlords.