The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1890. BIG ESTATES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2064, 26 June 1890, Page 2

The Temuka Leader THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1890. BIG ESTATES.

The following letter has been received from Sir Robert Stout: J. M. Twomey, Esq., Temuka. Dear Sir, —I have road with much pleasure your recent letters to the Lyttle* ton Times on Land Settlement, and I feel all colonists are indebted to you for frequent suggestions. Your mote of forcing those who are monopolising and not properly using agricultural land to give it up for settlement is certainly a far less interference with the rights of nroperty than the one Sir Edward Stafford proposed so far back as 1869. It is dear somediing must be done if our young men are to tsmain here. To force mere town industries is a mistake. Country life should be encouraged, for it is bettor for the race, morally and physically. What shocks me most is that whilst every, where in the civilised world it is seen that the State must control land-holding we, the colonists of New Zealand, should imagne that the 1 md system—unentailed freeholds—that has failed in other countries will succeed here. We are certainly leaving a bad legacy for our chi dren. The only hope lies in State control—that is, a form of perpetual lease, and in limiting' the area of the holding one man can occupy. No Lmd Acquisition Bill will cure the present evils if the land is to be again given in freeholds. I agree with you in the absolute need of more village settlement?. It is the remedy for unemployed. It provides a safeguard against intermittent labor that must exist m agricultural districts. You have done many services in your career as a journalist, but none more deserving of praise than penning such 'etters on the land question, which, after all, is the question of questions for us.— I am, etc.

Robert Stout. Dunedin, 21st June, 1890. It will be seen from this that the question of dealing with large estates is a very old one, but that nevertheless we are none the nearer to having it settled. The proposal to compel large estates to be leased is certainly not a very [Radical ene. ISo one would be hurt by it* and the whole country would be benefited. the late aad present Governments have suggested that the State should purchase the estates of monetary institutions. This cannot be done without borrowing money, but by compelling large landowners to lease not a farthing need be spent by the State. One thing is certain: large estates ought to be dealt with at once or let alone. There is no use in talking about the matter if people do not mean business, and, judging by the past, we are afraid the great majority do not. Only a very small area of land has been rendered available for settlement recently in Canterbury, and almost all of it' has passed into the hands of persons who did not want it, and bought it for speculative purposes, or who had already large areas of land. The Stout-Yogel Government made the conditions of land-selling such that it was impossible for it to fall into the hands of speculators, but no sooner were they turned out of office than the law was changed, A few issues ago we called attention to the conditions under which land was sold or otherwise disposed of, but that is not all, 1 The law was made so that a man 1 owning 10,000 acres of freehold could bu” 2 ®,000 acres more, but the leaseholder could nh! iacre^ se hiß holding beyond 610 acres. thIDS , done to play into the hands ot speculators and moneyed men, and all possible impediments were placed in the way of the poor, while village settlements were completely stopped. Ihe result is that the little Crown lands left in Canterbury have now passed beyond the reach of being advantageously settled. But is no use in drawing attention to these things. There will be an election in a few months, and we have very little doubt that the majority of the people will vote for the representatives of the clique which has done this. '