LECTURE ON LAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1515, 22 October 1883, Page 2

LECTURE ON LAND.

MRCotEMAN Phillips delivered a lecture on '«Land" at the Greytown Working Men's Club on Saturday evening. There was a very good attendance. Mr S, Revans was voted to' the chair, and in a brief manner ■introduced the lecturer, explaining that it wasproposed that Mr Phillips would give his lecture, and that after members jbad had time to think over the subject,, gome other, evening would be fixed upon to discuss it.; 1 ; Phillips commenced his lecture by-stating that his purpose was to give ■thorn his reading of history on the subject iu • the • past, go ' that people might make up their mind what to do in ' the future. The question now before .them- was the most im-. portant • of the day. Almost every one knew the old proverb, "voxpopuli, «k';B« I, j'but he would during the course of his lecture show that it is not Always that the voice of the people is the r voice"of God.' His object was to get theni. to, consider this great question ftfld:,fo 'fQichi. bne opinion, and one good pinion Vupbn it.' He would simply istate.- what his. experience was of the ■land question in the past, and referred ;to. : -Mr :Kolleston's land NationalisaiMQ/WPrld.to printout what lands were |te^undfer'; State-nationalisation and ; wsst under the" individual title.' China, • Jndia,V Arabia, Egypt,were all. State for which the people had ['to' p^y-rent to'tlie Stete. Turkey was [|a'r,tly State'landandpartly. individual I'title, but'as the western lands became Settled, people became more indepenxlenji and soughtto havethe individual, .title j, they tried to get out of it under the. Roman Empire.. As history went on, the north-western nations, Denmark; Saxony, Norway, England, fought out the individual title. He would remind them that their ancestors for'generations had fought for that title. Then the States' of America became settled,' and were freehold. Australia • followed. Africa was held under the communal, the chief holding the land for the tribe. Even savages have endeavobd.to.get the individual title. The question,,he would point out,is no new thing; it-has been considered during the centuries, and has been the war of agesj and h'| yould ask theni to read history He referred.them to..the.3Bth ;dhapj!er of ; Levities for, thei; old ißrflejitish land : laws and the; 'queption of' the, jubilee, and to get D? Smith's smaller history of Greeceand smaller' history of' Rome, and afterwards Messrs Wallace and Georges pooks.' The lecturer here quoted ■ paßsages from Mr Wallace's book, in which he: reviews the land' system in ' England, Scotland/and Ireland,andppmtdoutits : failure; the storjrof the; Sutherland evictions, and evictions,in .Ireland, -by; eye witnesses, He' (Mr Phillips)' thought that Mr Redmond.had some cause to cornea long 'journeyto let; people know the w#: $ fife county He was

npt surprisedtKat wheix the: whole of Ireland was:downed-by ten .thousand persons, aid ,had |» be leased by five millions, that they : have acted as they had done. They owed their thanks to Mr Wallace for bringing these things before them. But they must take care not.to.be carried away with new suggestions—the proper way wastostudy the history of the past. He'referred. to Mr Blakely's insurance scheme to show that new suggestions were not to be adopted at once. Mr Blakely's Bcheme had been well supported, and : . the Colonial Treasurer of this colony took the matter up," and it had been adopted by the friendly societies in Canterbury ■■; :.bufche from the first condemned it. Mr Wallace or Mr George would have laughed at such a scheme. The remedy for this was what they were adopting in France, viz: to see thatthe population d»es not exceed the food supply., There were two things he warned them againat—they could not trust the State and they could not trust the people. If the State was the landlord, they could not have straight and honest dealing. They could not depend -on their Parliament, ; No State-in history could be trusted. He would not''trust' any Government with-seven feet of land,, and their history shows,! they cannot trust the peopled , Inferred to the Otago leases and■ tho-tenants asking for reduction of'rents and getting them, and argued thatiso:jn)ich< pressure would be brought to b'ear on the Government that they would never know what to do with their/leasehold lands, He referred them to'the old Roman Empire and their system ofleaseholds, and the rough records ; kept, upon which their own Doomsday Book was founded. There the people had been so long on the lands that they thought they were their own/ If the New Zealand lands were leased and they in the future wished to put the poorer classes on tho land, they would find the same difficulty as. the Komans. The land question was a great and dangerous one to deal with, and he was surprised that, the Parliament of New •Zealand had the temerity to pass a Land Act while they themselves were utterly ignorant of.the.history of the past. Ho'then went'on to describe what a freehold title meant, and described the old Teuton race and the conquest of the Normans, and the revolt under Charles I. He did not agree with Stafford or Sutherland; neither did he agree with Mr" Wallace or Mr George. He hoped they would meet again and discuss the matter. Mr Buchanan in moving a cordial vote of thanks to Mr Phillips for' the pains he had taken in getting the lecture up, would be glad to hear a few remarks but it was bettor perhaps that they should be allowed time to thinkover it. He would have liked, however, to hear Mr Phillips, who had expressed his dissent with the law as it existed and also with Messrs Wallace and George, givehis own remedy, Mr Skeet seconded thevote of thanks which was carried by acclimation. Mr Phillips in reply pointed out that New Zealand alone of all the, English colonies was the, one tojtajce up the Land Nationalization scheme. There was another course and we must follow the tendency of the age. His remedy would be, do away with primmogeniture, cut away the law of entail. The tendency of tho age was to do away with everything but a Jife interest. He would compel every man to hare his land divided between ihis sons after his death, and them to divide after their death. This was the law.-in Kent, the North of Prance, Belgium, aiid Norway. Mr Buchanan asked permission. to make an explanation, He was sure Mr Phillips did not wish anyone to go away with a wrong impression, and he was afraid they would do so unless he stated that the Land Act of 1882 when -first introduced was certainly Land nationalization pure and simple, but when it came before the House it was modified and finally thrown out by the Upper House.

A vote of thanks to the Chairman concluded the meeting.