South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2540, 12 May 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, THURSDAY, MAY 12, 1881.

There is a body in Otago called the Central Land League, and as may be inferred from the name, its object is to open up the Crown lands for settlement. Mr Pyke, the irrepressible, is at the head of the movement, and we notice that there is an attempt to throw ridicule upon the League because of that gentleman’s connection with it. That is ever the way with sham Liberialism. It endorses the measures, but condemns the only men who have a chance of carrying the measures into effect. If Mr Pyke succeeds in having the big runs in the South cut up into small blocks, he will accomplish immense good to the colony generally and Otago in particular. The Land League have adopted a memorial for presentation to the Minister of Lands. It sets forth that £1,500,000 acres in Vincent County are leased by twenty-one persons or firms. This gives an average of some 70,000 acres each. The pastoral tenants of the Crown should rest content with smaller areas. Of the million and a -half acres referred to, it said that half a million acres are fit for agricultural settlement. The members of the League are anxious that the pastoral lauds of the interior should be cut up into blocks of 5000 acres. They also urge that certain amendments should be made in the existing law. The present Act does not give sufficient faci ibies for the acquisition of land in blocks suitable for combining agriculture with wool growing ; and that is by many intelligent observers deemed the future of settlement over a large portion of New Zealand. In Victoria we notice a movement in the same direction. The following is

some of the amendments in the present Act recommended ; by the Central Land League .of Otago. That the pastoral land when sub-divided into conveniently sized blocks be disposed of by leases for a term of years at an annual rental per acre, with the right of purchase. : The latter proviso will no doubt be obnoxious to many Liberals of an advanced type, who hold that the Crown should not part with a single acre of ground. However, that is too big a subject to discuss within the limits of this article. We will, however, remark in passing that the Government should not be in a hurry- to part with the pastoral lands. In other colonies experience has shown that in the early stages of settlement of a new country the small pastoral holdings are absorbed by the larger. When towns spring up in the interior, when agriculture and other industries are established in his neighborhood, there is no man more prosperous and comfortable than the owner of two to five thousand acres of land, though it be of moderate quality. There has been two much expedition in this country in parting with the public estate. The Land League suggests that provision should be made to prevent any person or firm obtaining or holding more than one lease. Of course without such an enactment the contemplated amendments would be futile. It is also asked that the holders of land under the deferred payment system should not be debarred from obtaining leases of pastoral lands. These are the very class of settlers who should be encouraged to extend their operations to sheep-farming, though there will be this, difficulty in the matter —that few of them will have an opportunity of obtaining leases in the vicinity of their present selections. It is also urged upon the Minister of Land that all agricultural land be held over until it is required for actual settlement. Half the eyils of New Zealand are attributable to that plan not having been followed out in the early days. However, Liberalism of any kind is of very recent growth in this colony. The .land for the few and not the land for the people was the motto of the small cliques who alternately ruled in the General Assembly and Provincial Councils.

Mb John Ballance, the Colonial Treasurer of the Grey Administration, addressed his constituents at Wanganui last night. Judging by the telegraphic summary of the speech, a considerable portion of it appears to have been devoted to showing the inconsistencies of bis opponents, especially Major Atkinson. The latter denounced the beer tax when proposed by Mr Ballance, in 1878, but he himself introduced it again a couple of , years afterwards. In 1878 the present Colonial Treasurer, when in opposition, spoke strongly in favor of an income tax. The other night, at Hawera, he was against it. There is little use in “Hansardising” the members of the present Cabinet. Some of them, no doubt, have had to swallow their opinions for the retention of office. Mr Ballance states that the doubling of the land tax would have nearly reached the amount of the property tax, which covered a greater area. The speaker was of opinion that no large system of taxation should be imposed without going to the country, and a property or income tax should be the test question at the next general election. Surely there will be other planks in the Liberal platform. Has the whole reform question narrowed itself to such an extent that its policy is embraced in an alteration of the incidence of taxation of not an essential or material kind. Never in the history of the colony have politicians been so much at their wits’ end for the want of party cries. Yet there is a wide difference really at bottom between the two main political parties of New Zealand. The present position of affairs reminds us of a remark made by an eminent statesman in the Old Country, that the “ Tories stole the Whigs’ clothing whilst they were bathing.” At the present time Hall, Atkinson, and Co. are arrayed in the garments of Grey, Stout, Ballance, and other Liberal leaders, and they will continue to wear those garments till such times as there is a Conservative reaction. Mr Ballance is hard upon the Legislative Council. He says that it is on its trial, and if it does not prove more useful to the people at large it must go, Mr Graham Berry never gave utterance to a stronger sentiment when dealing with that most Tory of all political bodies—the Legislative Assembly of Victoria. Mr Ballance disapproves of grants of land to railway companies. This is a question of great importance to Christchurch aud Wei lington. Each of the cities mentioned has a West Coast railway scheme, and each relies on land endowment to have its line constructed. We have noticed that the majority of members who have up to the present addressed their constituents are opposed to grants of land to railway companies. There is a natural fear of the growth of powerful monopolies who might exercise a controlling influence in the Legislature. In this connection America furnishes a warning. Mr Ballance supported Mr Bryce’s vigorous policy on the West Coast, but could not understand why he so long delayed in carrying out that policy. The speaker should hare understood by this time that Mr Bryce was held back by his colleagues, and also, we believe, by the public opinion of the country. Eor armed troops to have swept down upon Parihaka would have been nothing short of a crime. Te Whiti is simply an agitator for what he regards as Maori rights. The utmost his followers did was to trespass upon land which . they believed had been wrongfully wrested from them. That was not sufficient cause to initiate a native war. “ Vigorous policy,” indeed ! It would have been the cowardly act of the strong trampling upon the weak. The colony has been saved the commission of an outrage upon law and liberty.