HOMESTEADS FOE THE PEOPLE.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3467, 4 February 1880, Page 2

HOMESTEADS FOE THE PEOPLE.

To the Editor of the Evening Stab,. Sir—l was glad to see thai you, by your leader of Saturday, stillTcept before the public tlio raoin thing that will benefit us as a community. Report says that not a single Thames inhabitant purchased any of the land of the Upper Thames. It was not likely. For why—What is the use of the Upper Thames land to the miners-and others of this Goldfield ? They want the land on the spot; they want the hilis/ for there are spots in them where beautiful homesteads might be made. What is the use of land to them for an homestead 50 miles away from their work? The thing is apparent enough -.They are unable to pay the price demanded, and they could not work it, but had they land within an easy distance of their ordinary employment, then every available hour they had to spare—and they have had far too many of these lately—might be employed in making a permanent home for their families. And thus they would become bona-fide settlers ~and prosperous people. Only let .thisgoldfield be purchased and be thrown open at a reasonable price per acre —not two pounds, not one,* but at a price comeatable by working men and on deferred payments and the Government will soon see that those people will appreciate the boon and will occupy the land with alacrity. If that had been done years ago lots of people that have' left here in disgust would have remained and the Thames community, instead of being in the miserable plight it is now, would have been, prosperous and happy. When will statesmen see that all a population eat and drink and the ,clothing they wear comes out of the earth, every necessary of life, and luxury also, is the product of mother earth, which feeds us all. The land is given us by the Almighty that we jniay cultivate it and live off it, but grasping, speculators seize it and place upon ifc fancy_prices that they may fill their coffers with gold by its sale to the lond fide cultivator, but deluded simpleton; and thus it is that farming don't pay. No, the poor simpleton has paid away fill he had,perhaps to buy his land, and has nothing left to work it; so > he mortgages it to get the means to work it, and more often than not loses it and his improvements altogether. The system is full of iniquity and extortionj the speculator, the'land shark, and the mortgagee revel in luxury of every description with their ill-gotten gains, while the real cultivator and producer of the world's food is kept for ever poor; and so it is that farming don't pay; it would be strange if it did; and so it is that a country like New Zealand, which might be the mosf; prosperous in the world, is going/headlong jnto debt and ruin. No country or community is really prosperous,. unless the majority of the people are doing well. France is a wonderlul illustration of this fact. It is only in the large cities that there is any distress at r all. Her people, her country people are nearly all small landed proprietors, and,every child thus becomes useful and happy. But what are we on the Thames going to do with the swarms of youngsters growing up amongst us ? What is there for them here unless the lands are opened up? That's a puzzler. Will anyone answer the question? The man a-ho introduced the peach into New Zealand did a far greater and better work than the man who freights a ship with merchandize from the old country. The grower of the fruits and grain of the earth is far before the merchant in the real good he does to any community, especially to a young one like New Zealand. However useful the merchant may be in the formation of a new colony there ought to come, and the sooner the better, a time when he may be' entirely dispensed with; whether or not tbe merchant will have to be dispensed with everywhere shortly; moreover, the grower will exist when the merchant, the land shark, and the lawyer -their companions will be no more. We are told by holy inspiration, that as long as the earth endureth seed time and Jiansest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." The same inspiration, however, assures us that the destruction of the Babylon of so called civilization will cease, with its merchants and everything else pertaining to it, and the present condition of the world proves the time to be very uigh.. See Revelation 18, and well consider the prediction, reader. In a few months the nations of the old world will be in one blaze of warfare,, and the liquid highways of the world will be " covered with pirates, the ships will bo destroyed, and the merchandize will go to' tho bottom, if in this colony, then, our lands are not cultivated far more than they now are and yield their increase, ouispopulav tion will be reduced to" great straits, for' all imported goods will be enormously increased in price. It is simply madness to keep the lands locked up from, labouring people ; every encouragement ought to be given them to become settlers and cultivators on tho homestead principlo. The reason why Iso much, respect Sir George Grey is because he proves it to be his great object to see tho majority of the people comfortably settled on the lands of the colony, there is com* moo sense and common honesty in this object. There is no life so natural and so healthful as an agricultural or pastoral one and no life calculated to produce so greai an amount of real happiness and contentment, even now, when the earth is yet under sin and the curse ; but in the age about to follow the present one, the merchant as now known will be altogether unknown, the land grasper also, and the covetous of all kinds will be known no more; then the earth will teem with fruitfulness, and man's labor be light indeed. He will enjoy with the earth its Sabbath 6f rest, 'pure liberty and peace, sitting under his own viue and under his own fig tree, none daring to make hims afraid. May the Lord hasten that happy time.—l am, &c, William Wood.