The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1885. A DISCIPLE OF HENRY GEORGE

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2296, 15 May 1886, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. SATURDAY, MAY 15, 1885. A DISCIPLE OF HENRY GEORGE

We have received from Mr Gavin M. Park, of Masterton, a pamphlet entitled "The Unemployed and the Romedy," and have much pleasure in welcoming the author into the local controversial arena as a social reformer. We confess at once that we have but little sympathy with social reformers of the Henry George typo, for we must in honesty declare that our experience of them has been very unfavorable. They are usually splendid theorists, but remarkably deficient in every-day common sense, : We remember ut reformer of this type • twenty years ago, a man of splendid abilities and marvellons sagacity, who asked us once how it was that his neighbor, Bugging, an intellectually poor man, was worth thousands, while he, with his grand mental endowments, was not worth a shilling, He cou'd not grasp the simple fact that Buggitiß had saved his sixpences till thoy became pounds, and had put by his pounds till thoy mounted up to hundreds, and had taken care of his hundreds till they accumulated into thousands, while he, the man of profound wisdom, always spent his sixpences and could not, when be possessed them, keep pounds unexpended. The person to whom we refer was a reformer of the Henry George type, and conscientiously believed that his unsuccess in life was due not to himself but to political causes. Turning, however, t» the pamphlet, Mr Park, wo notice, claims to have worked out a better system of settling land, than those which we have hitherto tried and found failures. Now we take issue with Mr Park on this initial point because we hold that previous systems of settling land ( have not been failures, and that where men have settled prudently thev hyfe, sucoeodqd. life"* Zealand contains.thousands ei" weiftky

siittliTs who have worked their way up under systems which. Mr -Pake condemns. It is the imprudent' and the improvident Bettlet's who have been at fault rather than the systems in the Colony, and this is the essential point which sooinl reformers do "not care to meet. We regret that our space will not allow us to give Mr Pakk's scheme at lenglh.'lmt the more salient points of it ore embodied in the following 'extracts :-

(1.) Block; of tho best obtaiiialik Grown lands in cich provincial distinct ahouid be i-. : t aside for settlement under the perpetual leniug system, without the riglitof purchase ataii, future date, and information as to position, 'quality, etc, of tboland freely advertised. (2.) Persons desirous of taking up land in any of these blocks should intimate their desire to the proper authorities, giving full information as to tho purposes .to which they intend to apply, the land, together with tho quantity required, which,.in no case, should exctcd 150 acres of first-clans; land, or 300 acres of second-class land. (3.) After the selector hits received y au intimation that a section has been allotted to him, he will immediately furnish to the Government, certified by a Crown lands ranger, or other qualified officer, an estimate of the cost of clearing, fencing, and necessary buildings, the amount to be so expended being limited to, say £4 per acre. (!) Where the selector desires to follow any special profession such as gardener, orchard planting, hop growing, vine growing, or any other such calling, necessitating extra outlay, tho area of hia selection shall be limited to, say 50 acres, but the amount to. be expended may exceed the limit named in the preceding section, (5.) After the applicant's selection has ■ been granted, aud the expenditure necessary to make it reproductive agreed upon, the selector shall, within a givon time, commonce to clear and prepare his leasehold for the purpoßO for vdiioh it is required, (6.) Tho Government shall pay (on the production of ranger's certificate) for tho improvements periodically, as tho work progresses,

For the advantages of the scheme propounded we must refer our readers to the pamphlet itself merely adding one or two considerations which are essential to forming a just view of the question, To carry out the scheme suy to tlio extent of settling, ten thousandmen would require a capital of five millions. Should the colony borrow five millions for such a purpose ? would the London money market advance us such ut sum 1 and if, as it is very improbable, we could get the money, would we get our interest on it .out of ten thousand, tenants] Would any Ministry in power have the courage to evict unlucky and unsuccessful tenants? They would be more likely we think, to nominally dispossess them and appoint them caretakers to their own leaseholds, paying out more money to prevent the properties going to rack and ruin. If the Government could depend upon-securing ten thousand good tenants we J should cry hurrah for Mi JPaiuc's scheme, but we feel certain that there would be a few thousand bad tenants and only those who have practically realized what trouble a solitary bad tenant occasions can form anideaoftheutter demoralisation which would culminate from thousands. But passing overthese little practical difficulties which would certainly be encountered in working out such a scheme, we come to a still graver obstacle. If New Zealand deals with tho.unemployed by affirming the principle that each one of them should be started in business with a capital of £SOO, found by the colony, all the unemployed in the world would flock to our shores, each and. everyone demanding his £SOO. We are quite willing to admit the theoretical beauty of the scheme which Mr Park puts before us, but we feel bound to submit that in practice it would burst New Zealand up in no time. Jt would drive private capital out of the colony, and when private capital disappeared labor would follow after it, and the colony would once more be left as a happy hunting ground to the few Maoris who might remain uncorrupted by contact with civilisation,