MR. HOLLOWAY AT ROXBURGH.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 342, 28 March 1874, Page 2

MR. HOLLOWAY AT ROXBURGH.

The following address was presented to Mr. Holloway by the inhabitants of Roxburgh at j a public meeting held in Beightoa's Assembly Room, on 23rd March ; — On hearing of your arrival in this province, and the important mission in which you are engaged on behalf of your fellow countrymen at home, we have deemed it our duty to lay before you a concise statement showing the prospects of agricultural laborers here and the inducements held out for them making for themselves and families permanent homea ; also the manner in which the administration of the waste lands in this province has and ia now being conducted, founded on our own personal observation and experince during the past ten years. At the present time the great cry is public works and immigration. This policy no doubt, if wisely carried out by making- provision for the settlement on the soil of those by whom these public works were constructed, would give a powerful impetus to settlement, and prove of very great benefit to the country ; but when we see that important principle utterly ignored, and no provision made for attaching to the soil the thousands of immigrants now being landed on our shores, t» have the gravest fears that the day is not far distant when very great distress will result from the want of employment, and consequent disaster to the policy recently initiated. If a careful examination be made of the present demand for labor, it will be found tobe nominally caused by the public works now in progress, and the consequent expenditure of borrowed money ; and when we contemplate the cessation of these works-, and tbethousands who will then be thrown out of employment, to whom facilities for acquiring homes on the waste hinds have been denied, we reiterate our assertion that nothing but disaster can follow. It is evident that unless a considerable portion of the large influx of population is attached to the soil of the country, no truly permanent prosperity can ensue. With the railways at present in course of construction completed (there being as yet no manufacture* or other sources of employment on a scale of sufficient magnitude to absorb what will tb.ejtv necessarily be considered our redundant population) it requires no careful forecasting topredict the result — a result which, if our statesmen were worthy the name, they would exert their utmost endeavors to avert. It ii equally manifest that the source of the most permanent advancement of any country arises from the settlement of popidation on its waste lands, as in the course o!i a few years the people so settlel become themselves largeemployers of labor. It is our opinion that a very limited additional supply of labor will convert what ia admittelly a scarcity into a superabundance of that article, and again will be witnessed the painful state of affairs not uncommon five years ago — viz., numbers of able-bodied men travelling all over the province seeking for work and finding none. You will perhap* gain a clearer insight into the present position of the countryfrom thef ollowing statement : — To a person coming to this portion of NewZealand with a small capital there is absolutely no investment offering, which we settlers of many years standing could point out, as likely to give him, together with his own labor, remunerative employment. Thisj we contend, shows how completely at a standstill are the interior districts of the province. It is certainly from no want of Tesources, but from those existing being so completely debarred to men having only a limited capital and the labor of their willing hands. Now this condition of affairs indicates something radically wrong in the administration of our land laws, for in a comparatively new country g like New Zealand plenty of remunerative f employment ought to exist for the smallest as well as for the largest capitalist. *"~ The monopoly of our waste lands, however, is working with the usual disastrous results of monopolies, unfelt it may be at present on account of the adventitious outlay connected with the railways ; but certain, if not by a wise and statesmanlike endeavor to retrieve the past, to embarrass and cause serious, if not irreparable injury in future. With these few general remarks we would proceed to state as briefly as may beconsiitent with an intelligent comprehension of the facts, the following narrative of the manner in which the administration of our land laws hasbeen conducted, and the result of the efforts of the residents of this district to have the lands unlocked %or settlement, extending over the last ten years. Until shortly after the discovery of the gold diggings, an excellent and liberal land law existed, to which most of the settlers now in independent circumstances are chiefly indebted. At that time large hundreds or from 50,000 to 100,000 acres were proclaimed throtigh the province, within which any person was at liberty to select as much land as lie wanted ; while the bonafide settler was protected by the liability of the Crown grants being withheld in the event of improvement* to the extent of 10 per cent, not being made within a certain time. This had the effect of checking speculation, and affording the bma fide settler ample opportunity for selecting suitable land at a fair and reasonable price) together with the privilege , of grazing over the unoccupied land within the hundred. Shortly after, through the influence of capitalists and land speculators, this important safeguard to the man of small capital— theimprovement clause — wasstruck out, which was the signal for all the best land within those hundreds to be gobbled up by land sbarksr- Then followed the granting of tea years' leases to the runholder— computing from the expiry of their licenses — providing larger compensation in the event of the Government resuming any of the land for settlement, the right of pre-emption to larger areas of their runs, and other privileges detrimental to the public interest. Thi§ suicidal policy quickly had the effect of locking up the lands from settlement — the Government not being able to find means to pay the heavy compensation to the squattera. Numbers of small capitalists seeing no prospect of acquiring homes for themselves left the province in disgust, and also some thousands of miners possessed of a very large amount of capital left the goldfielda for the same reason, while the . province was reduced to the verge of bankruptcy, and had to resort to fhe. ruinous expedient* of forced sales of

large blocks of land to carry on the necessary -works of the province, and pay the salaries of the officials, which frequently fell into arrear for several months. The people persistently and strenuously urged the Government to open the lands with a liberal hand ; but the almost invariable replj was—Where is the money to pay the compensation to the runholder to come from ? You will no doubt agree with us in thinking that this was a most humiliating position for 'ft Government to be placed iv by their own deliberate act j but it is, nevertheless, strictly true, as we are fully prepared to show. The representatives of the people in the Provincial Council, alarmed at this deplorable state of affairs, endeavored year after year to get a law pasted by which the lands could be opened with a more liberal hand for the benefit of working men and small capitalists. But the squatting interest was so powerful in the General Assembly, and more particularly in the Upper Chamber — which, we may inform you, is almost entirely composed of squatters, or their connections, or agents, nominated by the Crown— that their utmost efforts have been but very partially successful. We now propose to illustrate the foregoing statements by giving you the results of the efforts of the residents in this part of the province to obtain their just rights by the opening of the lands for boxa fide settlement. - . „ - About eight or nine years ago the Provincial Government, after repeated applications by petitions, deputations, and other legitimate a^ means, tardily consented to open land for thereby making a show of appeasing the general discontent. They caused a block of land to be surveyed, now called the Shingle block, utterly unfit for settlement, being a barren bed of shingle, and which, from the provisions of the Goldfields Act, requiring that the one half of any block opened for agricultural purposes, must be taken up before any more could be opened on the particular run on which it is situated, precluded any other block being opened in that locality ; and it remains, since surveyed, until the present day, an effectual barrier to settlement in that part, and a standing monument of disgrace to the Government of the day. Again, the people petitioned for laud suitable for agriculture to be opened; and in response, after the usual delays and obstructions, a block of land comprising some of the finest land in the province — called the Island Block — wag surveyed into 50-acre sections — repeatedly .promised to be opened, and was actually legally applied for under the agricultural leasing system, and a certain day proclaimed in the , Government "Gazette" for hearing said applications; but, at the last moment, it was withdrawn, on the plea of being land of special value j and, in spite of the remonstrances of the inhabitants, who forewarned the Government of the result, it ■was sold by auction, when the entire block of this magnificent land fell into the hands of an absentee millionaire. Again did the people urge the opening of land for bona fide settlement, when a block of good agricultural land, comprising 5000 acres, was surveyed in 50-acre sections on Moa Flat, and repeated assurances given that it would be opened for settlement under the ■ agricultural leasing system ; but; at the last moment this fine block, in spite of the exertions of the residents, also shared the fate of the Island Block — being sold privately, together with some 50,000 acres additional, to the runholder at 14s. Bd. per acre. In consequence of these repeated breaches of faith on the part of the Government, the people, driven almost to desperation, took possession of a considerable portion of unsurTeyed land above the town of Roxburgh, and in a manner almost compelled the Government to surrey a block there : but after surrey, the all-powerful runholdor again stepped in and objected, and succeeded in getting the onelielf of the block withdrawn, while he was allowed at the same time to select a portion of his pre emption of 640 acres within it ; the other half, with the exception of some 200 acres of sterile rooky land, being all taken up. The residents then asked that another block be opened — having complied with the conditions of the Act by taking up nearly all the land opened; but the Government replied that no more would be opened, as one-half of the surveyed block was not taken up ; at the same time issuing instructions to their officials not to receive applications for the remaining portion of the block. Some gold miners with their families, who had been located on this portion of the block for years, seeing no hope of getting any land opened, applied to the Government for leave .to purchase ft few acres, which they had fenced-in for garden purposes. In the first place they had to procure the consent of the runbolder, which under the circumstances could easily be withheld. This preliminary being arranged, they were then allowed to have it surveyed, and were charged for this atthe rate of from 80s. to 795. per acre \ then they were required to advertise their applications, and had to go through other circumlocutory forms too numerous to mention, involving Additional delay and expense; and finally, , those individuals whose patience stood the £Jtjrial, were informed that they could purchase at 60s. per acre, costing altogether from £5 ~\tQ £8 per acre, while the runholder was allowed as much as he wanted, of the same quality, at 20s. per acre, and an allowance of 'ten per cent, recouped to him for cost of .survey. The latest instance of this long course of • maladministration occurred the other day, when all that "was worth having in a block of • fair agricultural land on Millers Flat, and which had been as usual repeatedly promised to be opened for agricultural settlement, was arranged to be sold privately to the runholder at the upset price of 20s. per acre, in con- , aideration of his giving up without compensation a block, of worthless barren land, similar to the shingle block mentioned before, wbich is now being surveyed ostensibly for settlement, but in reality to act as a barrier to any further settlement in v that locality—: the present land Act, as we "mentioned pre--. Tiously, requiring that one-third of any block- ~ opened under the deferred payment system must be taken up and occupied before any more can be opened. With reference to the land laws, they arenot so much to be complained of as the onesided manner in which they are administered. In presenting you with the foregoing statement, we desire to explain that our motive is to afford you some information as to the prospects of the laboring classes in this country, and the operation of the land laws as at present administered. In conclusion, we would say that if* guarantee similar to that obtained by Mr. Arch, on behalf of our friends, from the Government of the Dominion of Canada, be not obtained, the prospects of home laborers who may come out here are not, in our opinion, the most hopeful. If, however, genuine facilities for settlement on the hinds, and the numerous restrictions and obstacles at present iv vogue are abolished, then unquestionably New Zealand is a good field for the class who have deputed you to visit this country and report on their behalf. I have the honor to be, E. Mobrison, Secretary to Roxburgh Progress Committee.