ANTI-POVERTY SOCIETY

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 459, 2 April 1890, Page 3

ANTI-POVERTY SOCIETY

MR PEACOCKE'S LECTURE. “DEAR ACRES AND CHEAP MEN.” Auckland, March 26. At the ordinary monthly meeting of the Anti-Poverty Society last night (Rev. Dr. Hooper in the chair), Mr Gerald Peacocke delivered an address, the subject being “ Dear Acres and Cheap Men.” There was a good attendance. Mr Peacocke said that the term “ cheap men ” included nob only men earning low wages, but all men. whose lives were rendered sordid and wretched, and whose social position was one of social degradation and subjection, owing to the iron pressure of conditions which had their origin in the monopoly of land by a few. Amongst the cheapest labourers of all in this world were the tenants who worked for landlords and the farmers who worked for mortgagees. Very few daily wage-earners worked so hard for so little benelit to themselves as did a very large number of people in one or other of these positions. Dear land was the direct cause of this evil. Farmers borrowed on mortgage because they had not money enough to pay the price asked. for land in many cases and yet retain sufficient capital to work the land. In the case of tenants, it was notorious that in many countries the bulk of the products of their labour on the land were confiscated as rent paid to the landlord. In illustration the speaker cited the condition of the peasant cultivators of the soil in Southern Russia, and also referred to the fact that in 1847 the agricultural produce for the year in Ireland was valued at £44,958,120, and in that very year no less than 21,770 persons died of starvation in that country, besides 250,000 who died of fever induced by starvation. The wheat, oats and other products were sent out of the country Lo the rent exacted by the so-called owners of the soil, while the very men that raised the crops thus exported died of hunger. It might be said that these were the evils of older countries which did nob affect us out here, but he would remind them that the same institutions with regard to landowning prevailed in the colonies, and if we were travelling on the same road must we not ultimately reach the same point unless we pause and alter the course we are following now ? Already it had come to this that 80,000 persons were living on 300,000 acres of land, while 1,500 people monopolised between them something like 18 millions of acres in New Zealand. We had also what was called a “Sweating Commission ” now sitting in Auckland, as an ominous sign of the Old World evils and miseries already springing up in this infant community. Wages were higher in America and in these colonies chiefly because land wa3 as yet cheaper and more easily got hold of by the labouring classes. Dear acres gave the capitalist employer an immense power over labour, which with cheap land he would not have. It must not be supposed that capital in itself was the enemy of labour. Such an idea was, of course, utterly mistaken and mischievous. Bub owing to the system of land monopoly under which we lived, the capitalist had placed in his hands a whip over labour which human selfishness made it a great temptation to use to his own advantage. The speaker then referred toand repudiated the charges of robberyand confiscation that had been hurled against the advocates of a land tax on unimproved values. The most important point to be considered in connection with this question was after all whether in what they were trying to do to free'the land they had right on their side. If they had not right and truth on their side they would not succeed, and no right-feeling person would wish them to succeed. But if they were in the right both morally and politically the principles they advocated would and must triumph in the end in spite of the opposition of selfishness and prejudice. He advocated no rash and sweeping changes. Let the principle be set working in ever so small a way, and if it was a good principle it would develop and grow info a great national policy unanimously accepted by all. (Loud applause.) . 1 A number of questions were then asked, to which Mr Peacocke briefly replied.

A vote of thanks for the address was moved in complimentary terms by Mr Warburton and passed by acclamation, and after the usual vote of thanks to the Chairman the meeting terminated.