ENGLISH LAND LAWS AND EMIGRATION.

Temuka Leader, Volume 2, Issue 153, 11 June 1879, Page 3

ENGLISH LAND LAWS AND EMIGRATION.

The following is an extract from a recent address,by,Lord Derby :

We may probably have changes in the land laws within the next few years, but though they may lead to more careful and profitable cultivation of the soil, they are very unlikely to lead to a larger number of persons being employed upon it. The small freeholder and the very small occupier have never held their own in England any more than the handloom weaver against the competition of the powerloom. I think it will be SO still. For my part I think the future will in that respect be like the past, but many people take a different view, and to them I say experiment is very easily tried. There are plenty of aeres to be had, and plenty of owners willing to sell ; let those who have faith in what is called “ peasant proprietorship” go into the market, form a company, buy land and divide it into rots of the size they think most suitable. If they fail to find purchasers we shall know that the supposed demand does not exist; if they succeed, they will have done useful service ; and in any case they will have practically tested the soundness of a theory that has never yet been either verified or refuted. Though I do not hold that there is much of an opening for working men on the land at Home, Ido not say the same of land elsewhere, I think it is a very fair question whether in this little island of ours we are not getting packed too closely and whether we have not suffered from the comparative stoppage of emigration in the last few years. j/migration is for a people like ours a natural and even necessary outlet.

>u may pass what law you please, you me y lighten the burden of taxation until ij: • working men are practically exempt; bnt- as long as there are more of them then can get work, and as long

as two men are looking after one employer, neither votes nor freedom from taxes, nor anything else that politicals can do, nor yet any ex periment of theii own for producing artificial scarcity of labor in special employments, will in the long run prevent them from being badly off. I am not contending that any of you should start for the New World without inquiry as to the chances when you ■ get there. Just now the Americans have their troubles as well as ourselves but with their boundless soil they are rapidly accumulating capital, and with their exceptional energy they are sure to rally before long, and, indeed, I believe the rally has already begun. There are children living who will probably see the United States numbering 200 millions of inhabitants, and I do not think there is any subject to which leaders of working men can more usefully turn their attention than the supplying to those who want it here accurate and trustworthy intelligence as to their chances beyond the Atlantic, either north or south of the Canadian boundary lino. We shall always have men enough left at home, and even if the emigration were to go to the length of checking the increase here, which it almost certainly will, it is better to have thirty-five millions of human beings leading useful and intelligent lives than forty millions straggling painfully for a bare subsistence. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) There are many persons, I know, who will object on the ground that though emigration may be good for the individual, it weakens the State. I cannot take that view. A contented people goes a long way towards making a State powerful, and I have always been convinced that a great deal of our freedom from international trouble in this country, which we sometimes ascribe to national character and sometimes to our political constitution, is really due to the various outlets which both in past and present times we have created for ourselves by sea. They are our safety valves, and if they get choked I should expect the result to the uncomfortable.