PROPERTY AND OUR PEERS.

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 52, 10 September 1881, Page 614

PROPERTY AND OUR PEERS.

" Proputty, Proputty Sticks, an' Propufcty, Proputty Gniws."

Whex Mr Murray told the House of Representatives that the Council was a body of men whose duty it was to look after the interests of property recollection immediately ran on the famous saying of Martin Luther, " When I saw Dr. G-odc begin to tell his puddings hanging in the chimney, I told him he would not live long, and so it fell out ; and when I begin to trouble myself about brewing, malting, cooking, etc., then I shall soon die." It was an ignoble function the member for Bruce assigned to the Upper Chamber. It is difficult to understand what Mr Murray included in the term, " Property." The skilled labour of an artisan is property, in a fuller sense than consols, bank shares, or any other form of realised wealth. The old legend of St. G-eorge may be used as an allegory in discribing property. The virgin will represent labour, every thing depending on the effort of man ; she is vexed and persecuted by the dragon property, who would fain devour her ; he plagues her with hunger, famine, wars, and slavery, until the strong and good prince arises, who delivers her and restores her rights. It A\as not without design that the name of Greorge was selected to give point to the .legend, representing, as it does, one who " builds edifices justly and with regularity." If the word " capital " had been used by Mr Murray instead of " property," he would not only have been felicitous in expression, but more precise in thought. He has, however, done great public service in drawing attention to the special duties and functions of the Upper Chamber. He has told us the Peers are employed in counting and preserving "the puddings hanging in < lie chimney," which they and others possess. Whether the mischance which befel Dr. Grode may happen unto the functions of " Our Peers," our children will determine. All interest in Mr Murray's statement is found in the fact that it raises consideration of the growth of capital in New Zealand.

Capital lias been rudely defined as the savings j of labour or the result of the abstinence from enjoyment. The eapibil oi' individuals alone is included in these definitions. The capital of a j country is quite a different thing. Thus, the coal mines on our Crown Lands form a portion of our Colonial capital \mtil they become the property of private persons. Looking closely to the J individual members of the Council one cannot but notice (hat the wealthiest men therein are chiefly .stock-owners, and the observer is driven back to the fact that "cattle" and "capital" are etymologically.the same word. He then becomes aware that the cattle fender is a more active conservator of capital than the Honourable Eobert Campbell, the cattle owner, for instance. The sheep farmer breeds his capital, while the speculator makes it. In the times of the patriarchs Hocks grew and multiplied, and Abraham and Jacob were pleased to see " their cattle was great and cover the land." There was no abstinence from enjoyment in that, case; their capital increased from no saving of labour. And there is no abstinence of enjoyment in the case of the runholder ■who beholds his Hock multiply with the same emotions as filled the hearts of the fathers of Israel. The man who sees his lloek multiply with pleasure lias a greater enjoyment in their multiplication than lie would experience in spending their exchangeable value in the purchase of other commodities. The modern runholder is like the savage in Damara Land, described so graphically by Mr G-nlton. "I. was surprised to observe," he says, " the considerations that induced the chiefs to* tajce pleasure in their vast herds of cattle. They were valued for their stateliness and colour far more than for their beef. The payment of two oxen -was hush money for the life of a man. I had the greatest trouble in buying oxen for my own use -with the ordinary articles of barter. The possessors Avould hardly part with them for any remuneration ; they would never sell their handsomest beasts." The Maori, before he became Christianised, had no idea of barter or exchangeable value. He neither bought nor sold, and yet his mere -was as much a portion of his capital as Bank of ]S T ew Zealand shares arc to the Hon. Mr Dignan, or the canoe constructed with so much care and difficulty Avas to Robinson Crusoe. The weakness of property representation is mainly to be found in its inequality. This \inequal representation was exhaustively discussed some time since in the celebrated controversy -which took place between Willie Swanson and Paddy MeCaughan, as their friends call them, in the presence of John Sheehan, that amiable and able narrator of unreported dialogues and incidents. Willie Swanson maintained if women -were admitted to vote for the election of members of the House of Representatives that successful ballet dancers should be entitled to a dual vote because they had " property " in their -well developed limbs. The distinction he drew -will seem to be of importance when the controversy appears, as related by the man Dan Pollen (first called " A Colonial Paddy"), in my next contribution. It may be as well, however, to state that the matter ind'isputcd was referred by mutual consent to the Hon. Mr Dick, who, douce covenanter as he may be, was compelled to go to Dunedin, in order to solve the question, with the aid of Sibbald, of the Provincial Hotel, by inspecting Victoria Loftus in tights. The written and able judgment the Colonial Secretary delivered on this phase of the representation of property will be published after Mr Sheehan returns to the Cambridge Land Court. McCaughan, so Sheehan says, had great trouble in pinning Swanson to a point in the controversy, the member for Newton being addicted to the habit of whipping the devil round the post, and, when engaged in this favourite Scotch pastime, is as hard to catch as the the Irishman's pig that is wanted to pay the "rint." The importance of this representation of property is daily becoming more apparent. Mr Sheehan, it will be seen, has | gone back on his party altogether because, at his instigation on Thursday morning, the Ministry added a clause to the Representation Bill, which enabled Mr Carey to vote for the property he possesses by lease in the legs of a ballet dancer. Agricola.