THE CHIEF NATIONAL QUESTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8377, 11 March 1907, Page 5

THE CHIEF NATIONAL QUESTION.

(To the Editor). Sir,—The Land Question is still the chief national question in every country in Christendom. Old England, a few centuries ago, had no agrarian question to trouble.her; the land was practically free, it was open to everybody, all could get as much land as they could cultivate, and the soil bore the charges of national and local government. Those were happy days in the Old Country. Then there was little vagrancy, no work-houses, no poor-law system and no need for it. Labourers in town and country obtained a wage equal to about £3 a week of our money, the cost of living was not half what it is in Ne\y Zealand to-day, and the eight hours day was universal. All classes were contented and happy because all were doing well. There was no Arbitration Court and no Conciliation Boards, because there were no strikes and no friction between capital and labour. Those who Want to know more about those happy times in the Old Land must read, "Six Hundred Years of Work and Wages," by Professor Thorold Rogers. All the industrial troubles of England came with land monopoly, the divorce of the people from the soil, and the throwing on the backs of the people national and local burdens which were formerly borne by the land. So the land question is really the labour question, and the labour question is the land question, although the masses of mental and manual labourers for wages in all countries are not as yet aware of it. They think the economic or industrial question is simply a, matter between the employer and the employed, and, believing this, they go to the Conciliation Boards and the Arbitration Court for a few shillings a week more wages—without success if it is found that the employers cannot pay more wages and get a reasonable return on their capital; but if successful in obtaining the coveted few shillings advance, they might discover very soon, if they were close observers, that rent, or the price paid for the use of land, has also advanced, and that commodities have likewise gone up, leaving them r\6 better, but, if anything at all, worse off than they were before. Then they "go for" the poor employer again, for lack of knowledge, never for a moment thinking of, never perceiving the great and most potent cause of all the trouble, which the world's leading social scientists have been calling public attention to for so many years—the price paid for the use of land and the right to work and live. Of course I know very well that some employers of labour are making large profits, such, for example, as the shipping companies and many of the large farmers; but, on the other hand, there are many employers, who, if they paid their employees a few shillings each mc?re per week, would soon be approaching a state of insolvency. We have a Land Bill now before the country which is good as far as; it goes, but were it passed to-morrow the great urban land question would ,still remain untouched. The bulk of that enormous value which the people give and are compelled to give to the land by their presence and industry, and which is taken out of the produce of labour every day, is drawn

'rom the cities, towns and, hamlets >f the colony, and it would still gonto a few pockets without the revivers giving the producers any;hing in return for it. This is the nain and most pressing part of the and question, and it is to this part •fit that the earnest attention of the •rovernment must be called. The irban land question must be ade[uately dealt with if we are to have iocial peace and harmony and that eal and continuous national progress vhich all true friends of the colony md all really patriotic people must lesire. I shail be glad to see a free ixpression of opinion upon it from my who are capable of intelligently liscussing it ar.d helping the comnunity to a just solution of the most lifficult problem that has yet faced iur Government. It is useless to alk of dropping the Land Bill and eaving the question where it is. The Ministry could not take a more disistrous step. It must stick to its ;uns, and fight for a settlement that vill be for the good of the whole jeople. —Yours, etc.,

GRACCHUS