The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1886. EXPROPRIATION OF LAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2443, 2 November 1886, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1886. EXPROPRIATION OF LAND.

Our local contemporary, referring to our remarks on the Expropriation of Land scheme says ; K he (the Editor of the Dmt) llkei to be candid ho can tell.why the townships on one side of the Watrarftpa aro growing rapidly in sizo and value, while thoso on the other Bide are standing still and .thejcoiintry around them ia nonprogressive, He knows that on ono sido there is true settlement-lots of bush, but small Motions and population! with perhaps not much caapltal, but the labor and thrift that produco capital j and that on the other side the populations mostly sheepandrabbits. And knowing these things why does he not, liko the Hon Mr Ballance, speak out the truth like a man?

We do like to be candid, and if we differ from the Hon. Mr Ballanoe in the conclusion at which we have arrived it is because the logic of facts is on our side. Small farm battlers can only thrive on suitable land under favorable conditions, and such land and auch conditions have been open to them for the past twenty-five years. Small farm settlements have not been invented by Mr Ballance, but year by year they have been located in all parts of the colonv since ita first settlement, Some have thriven and othors have failed. The men whom our contemporary designates " the voracious land grabbers" have neither been the cause of the" success on the one hand or the instrument of failure on the other. When land cannot be occupied by small settlers "the voracious land grabbers" step in but we ask our contemporary whether it is not better that the •V.L.0.. should occupy and improve land rather than that it should remain unocoupied and unimproved, merely tied up in a napkin for the workingmen of the future. Our contemporary accuses the Y.L.Q. of forestalling the working man in monopolising the land. In some instances he may have done so but unless we are mistaken these instanoes have been confined to Wairarapa South in this district, but wo contend that the boot is occasionally on the other leg, and the working man sometimes takes up land which ought to have been reserved for the voracious

land grabber. We will give an instance: Some twenty odd years- ago a few thousand acres on the Belmont Hills, distant only eight or ten miles from the city of Wellington, were surveyed into forty acre allotments and settled by working men. We heard it said then •that some day. the Belmont small farms would make a fine sheep run, but looking at the forty or fifty industrious men who took up sections I lion, falling the bush and grassing the land, getting up early, going to bed lale, and eating the bread of carefulness, we thought at the time that in this instance the V.LG. would not step in, Ho has, however, stepped in, or rather two or three have done so, and scooped up all the small settlers' clearing. Sir William Fitzberbert and one or two other mangates now use as a Bbeep run a country. whioh was once parcelled out among small settlers, and which was dotted with apparently thriving homesteads. The sottlera one by one finding their holdings did not pay them, went north, south, east and west and took up lands where the conditions were more favorable for permanent occupations, Whero conditions are unfavorable for small farm settlement, the V.L.G. Bteps in, it will be seen, eventually even though he may bo ehufc out from competition in the first instance. We agree with Mr Ballance so far that all land fit for profitable occupation in small sections should be r.osorved for Bmall settlers, but we distinguish between that which is fit and that which is unfit, Here Mr Ballance comes to grief. He has a theory of expropriation, but he does not see exactly how it would work. He would, perhaps, expropriate o plaoe like Landsdowne and give the present owners of it, say ten thousand pounds for their interests in it, and divide it amongst small farmers who would not be able to make it pay and who consequently would not be iu a position to complete their engagements with the Government, The latter would either have to submit to a heavy loss on their purchase by releasing the small farmers from their engagements or ruin theru by forcing tbem to pay up. Kventually the present owners would probably have an opportunity of buying back the property on their own termsPossibly Mr Ballance has omitted, out of his calculations the fact that the V.LG. comos in at last if he does not come in at first, when land which is unfit for small settlemcntis placed in the market for working mon only. We venture to prophecy that a good deal of the land now being settled by Mr Ballance, with working settlers will ultimately become the property of large holders. Mr Ballauce oannot control the laws of supply and dsmand, of accumulation and distribution, Ho can blook one or more of them for a time, but the rising tide, will sweep away the puny obstacles ho may place bits way, His present projeots are to a large extent experimental. If there is 000 thing more than another ho is in enmity with it is" speculation in land," and yet his own schemes aro evolving little speoulations by thedozen. In many instances the members of Special Settlement Associations hauo taken up land avowedly as a pure speculation and not with the remotest intention of settling upon them, We have watched tho operation of settling small farms for the last twenty years, and know something of the limits within which it can be developed. We have always advocated its developments within these limits, believing that in a country like New Zealand the cultivation of the soil is the best local industry. If there is one thing more than another fatal to the progress of small farm settlements it is indiscriminately placing men on land where the conditions are not favorable to ultimate success. There have been very many failures in the past, and Mr Ballanco, if we mistake not, is brewing a fresh crop of them. Fortunately it is not within his power to put in practical operation his expropriation. proposals; if it were, he would, in his enthusiasfcio zeal for experiment, do incalculable mischief, There has never been a time within the last twenty years during wbioh a working man with a Bmall capital could not obtain suitablo land for settlement on ea3y terms within tho Provincial District of Wellington. It may be said that now a working man without any capital at all can settlo on land, but we should not advise a man ir, such an impeonnious position to do this, because bis chances of success are hopelessly bad, Wo heard of such a man the other day. He borrowed a pound or two to take himself and his family to the bush, he bought a bit of land on credit, put up a cottage on credit, and obtained stores on oredit. He is now a full fledged bush settler, owing money all round, and without a sixpence to moet a single one of his numerous liabilities, Those aro the lesso.lß which Mr Balance's new philosophy is teaching. Men are made to believe that capital is unnecessary in settling under the. new fangled regulations of the Hon, the Minister for Lands. We see men under the new order of things who dispense not only with capital, but also with industry, and who are apparently flourishing like a green bay tree for a season. While Government money is being freely expended, while Government billots are available, while bush lands are being bulled in the market to fancy prices, it may be possible to ignore the value of a little hard-earned money, and to oeaso to rely upon physical exertion for a living, But these Halcyon periods are always exceedingly brief. The present one may last a few months, but it cannot be prolonged for many, and then there will bo the usual finale—all but thow who have brought into the bush settlement business a little money and a good deal of hard work, will succumb to tho inevitable, and Mr Balance's soheme of universal land progression will be laughed at as a hurst bubble.