Untitled

Waipawa Mail, Volume I, Issue 10, 16 October 1878, Page 2

The Australasian of the 21st ult. gives some interesting particulars of the alienation of the public estate in Victoria. It appears that at the present rate of progress it will oidy take ten or twelve years to alienate the Crown lands. Looking at the fact that a considerable portion of the revenue of Victoria is derived from' Crown lands, the Victorian people may reasonably entertain gloomy forebodings as to the amount of taxation in the future. O ur contemporary says that about the year 1890 there will be no more land to administer, and the last President of the Board of Land and Works will have an opportunity of penning an epitaph for his department, and of drawing up a final report somewhat to the following effect: —“ Thirty-four years ago, the Imperial Government handed over to us a magnificent patrimony, consisting of 56,440,720 acres of land, less 4,382,315 acres which had been previously sold by auction. Under wise and prudent management, this grand estate might have been made to yield a revenue amply sufficient to cover all the expenses of government; for, although these would necessarily increase with the growth of population, tne value of the land, and the income accruing from it would increase “ pari passu.” This was pointed out to the people of Victoria, soon after the institution of responsible Grovernment in this colony, by the first of living economists. But his admonitions and advice were disregarded. Popularityhunting politicians emulated each other in promoting a general scramble for the national domain ; and this had the effect of demoralising the interests of the many to the cupidity of a few, and of robbing posterity with the one hand, while saddling it with a heavy load of indebtedness with the other ;

until at length the painful duty devolves upon me of announcing that the public estate is now a thing of the past, and that my hon. colleagne the Treasurer will have to ask for additional taxation in order to make both ends meet.” This is excellent political economy which the Australasian is now preaching for the first time. Had it exerted its powerful influence in the past in the same direction its advocacy might have been productive of great good, but the leading papers of Victoria have ever sneered at what they were pleased to term the deluded theorists who believed that it was possible for the State to hold land in perpetuity. This same question much concerns the people of New Zealand. It is true that alienation has not reached the same stage here as in Victoria, but that is owing more to the recognition of native ownership than to any adherence to sound economical principles. Tear after year in New Zealand the Colonial Treasurer has pointed to an increased land revenue as a cause for congratulation, and scarcely a murmur of dissent has been heard either inside or outside the walls of Parliament. The natural earth hunger of the people and the needs of the Treasury were too potent for the arguments of the economists. In another generation these principles will be recognised, and our children will marvel at the stupidity of their fathers in parting with the national domain at a tithe of its real value.