LAND MONOPOLY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2600, 28 December 1893, Page 2

LAND MONOPOLY.

There is at present a controversy going on between the Lyttelton Times and the Press. The Times asserts that the flower of the youth of Canterbury have been obliged to seek fresh fields and pastures new, owing to land monopoly, and this the Press denies. We believe the Press would deny its own existence if it suited its purpose. There are several homestead viliage settlements in the North Island composed almost, if not, entirely of Cancerbury settlers ; a few yoara ago, so great was the rush from Canterbury, that a protest was entered against the Government encouraging the people to migrate from it, and the late John Ballance promised to see how the exodus from this proviuce could be stopped. The youth of Canterbury are to be found in every nook and comer of the North Island, and in addition to this they will be found in numbers in Southland, to which place they were attracted by the breaking up of large estates. But of course the Press is ignorant of all this, and argues that land monopoly does not exist in Canterbury, because, it says, it produces more wheat and other cereals, more frozen mutton, and so on, than any other province. This is logic. Canterbury is the most suitable part of New Zealand for the production of cereals, and only for the laud monopoly it would produce ten times as much as it does. The fact is, very little grain is cultivated out of Canterbury and Otago, and it is the height of nonsense to say that because more wheat is grown in this province than in any of the other provinces it proves that land monopoly does not exist in it. But we need not continue the discussion. There is not a man in Canterbury who will not laugh at the Press for bringing forward such a ridiculous argument as this, for everyone knows full well that it is not true. None of the other provinces is so suitable for grain-growing ; none ui them has such an extensive area of valuable land, and as grain-growing land is so limited it ought not to be allowed to remain locked up in sheep runs. It is this which haß made Canterbury the most Liberal district in New Zealand. It is this idea • which was emphasised by the result of the last election, and, however bitter the reflection may be to owners of large estates, nothing is more certain than that the people will not tolerate their existence much longer. It is true that the youth of Canterbury have to fly from the home of their birth because there is no room for them, and yet it is true that Canterbury could carry ten times its present population if land monopoly did not exist.