The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JULY 25, 1887. CLAPTRAP ABOUT LAND.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2656, 25 July 1887, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, JULY 25, 1887. CLAPTRAP ABOUT LAND.

Mb A. W. Hoos devoted a prominent and considerable portion of his late political address to the land question. It would tax our space and weary our readers to follow him through all his utterances upon this subject, but if we tak'e'a sample sentenoe or two at random we find that his land policy is a house of' cards.' On the surface his views appear.to be most attractive, but if one ventures to look into them a very considerable amount. of claptrap is'revealed. As an illustration we take the following extract haphazard: "He hoped he had convinced them in that respect that between the StoutVogel government and the previous administration there was a great contrast. Mr Ballance would be the last man to interfere with anyone that improved his land in a proper manner. The farmer was quite a different individual from the monopolist who added thousands upon thousands of acres; because he tilled the soil, got the benefit of its productiveness, and employed plenty of labor.,; His freehold and leasehold, as, the/case might be, ought under these circumstances to be as secure to him as the coat on his back. He would be no party to confiscation, but he would have no monopoly. It was the duty of the

state "to deal with the monopolist, and lie believed that he had a method in view thatwouldbe extremely effective." The idea of Mr Ballance not inter-

fering with settlers who improve their land is noble till one reflects that as the exact relations between Mr •Ballance and the occupiers of land are determined by .law the Minister for Lands could not very well interfere

with settlers 'without infringing the :'■ law. Are. we to assume that Mr ' Ballance' undertakes to infringe the law in the interest of settlers, and' that, : he is'a'benevolent despot who sets law at defiance, and does what he likes in his Department ? The only possible way Mr Ballance could meddle in the affairs of settlers would be by relieving them from their obligations to make certain periodical payments to the Government. If this is to be his policy it will speedily bring the Colony into difficulties, and new taxes will be necessary to pay for the debts which Mr Ballance releases. Then we are led to believe that the man who owns a thousand acres of land is a monopolist, but.tbat the man who holds only a hundred acres is not. This is very rank nonsense, because the holder of a single acre of land is to all practical intents and purposes a monopolist, who shuts out from his particular little patch all the world. New Zealand lives and pays the interest upon her enormous debts by the monopolising of one acre here, of a hundred acres here, and of a thousand in some other place. Monopolies, which virtually mean freeholds, are the best methods by which the greatest amount of produce can be obtained from the soil. Big, little, and middling sized monopolies or freeholds are essential to working the land of the Colony to the best advantage. In Masterton a man may make a, living off an aero of land.in Mauriceville ho cannot, perhaps, do with less than fifty, and in some parts of the Whareaina, he cannot possibly subsist on less than a thousand. If wo declared that monopolists of a thousand acres should be abolished, half the land in the Wairarapa which now supports us, which keeps the bit in our mouths in the town as well as between the lips of the country settlers, would bo abandoned to the rabbits. A man holding a hundred acres would be as much a fool to vote against a man holding a thousand, as a man holding one acre would be to vote against a man holding a hundred. Practically wo require small, middlesized, and large land monopolists in the colony.' It is absurd whon half the land in the Colony is in the market at nominal prices to say to the monopolist of one aero,-" You'shall not hold fifty," or to the monopolist of fifty, " You shall not hold five hundred or a thousand," Mr Hogg's land policy if carried into operation would mean ruin to the town and country, and we trust sincerely that his' sentiments are merely an election cry. If Mr Hogg deals effectively with the monopolies he must abolish the freehold title'in land altogether, If he spares eventhe man who owns a quarter acre section, he leaves a little monopolist at large who may grow some day into a big ;, monopolist. The monopolist cry i 3 a ' good election material, and is a phase of the popular bursting up policy, If men advocating such views are retur-. Ned to Parliament, there is no safety or security for the owner of a single , acre of land in New Zealand. Land now bears all the burdens of. the Colony, and supports a thousand' idle patriots. If it is much further harassed, it will be a. worthless commodity.