THE LAND.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 4013, 8 November 1881, Page 3

THE LAND.

(To the Editor of tbe Evening Slav.) Sir, —I have read about the Irish and Maori land rebellions, and have cotne to the conclusion that if people want the land they will have to send to Parliament men who will pledge themselves to vote that no man shall hold over to .certain amount, whether rich or poor, Maori or white.. If people will send men to Parliament owning thousands of acres, of course they want these men to have the land and do not want it themselves. No man m would of his free will give up land that cost him nothing, that he got God only knows how, and that by doing nothing to it would increase its value every year, and make the man all the richer the less expense it was to him. As to the right or the wrong of dispossessing the natives of their land, it is to be feared, if history is to be trusted, that since the Creation no one has any right to it (land), for the, simple reason that it lias always been acquired by force. Even in Ireland it is force altering the laws, and so it is here, the distinction between New Zealand and Ireland being that the natives of the Utter cultivated and enriched the ground for the. benefit of the proprietors or landlords, while here the natives won't cultivate the land for themselvesi or let anyone else do it, and yet expect to hold the land while we increase its value for them.—l am, Ac, ' P;BP, Thames, 7th Nov.