The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1888. WHY PEOPLE ARE LANDLESS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2816, 6 February 1888, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1888. WHY PEOPLE ARE LANDLESS.

Why are people in New Zealand landless ? A certain section of the Colonial press is wont to give a very dishonest answer to this question. It

is said that the people are landless because of the land-grabbers, the men who mop up big slices of the country, tho monopolists who count their acres by thousands and tens of thousands, and keep the smaller settlers at a distance. We are even, warned, as a glaring example of this, that forty settlers may annex, between them in a neighboring nearly a million acres of Native land, and we are invited to display a proper amount of envy, hatred, and malice against such marauders. It is not, however, the men settling large blocks of land/who keep people landless, indeed, settlers of this type are just now in great demand iu our Bush settlements, as employers of labor, Small farmers find they cannot get along very v/ell without large ones, and they are longing for the big landgrabber to settle alongside of them, and epend his money amongst them on improvements. The land-grabb?rs who improve and work their land are the most useful settlers in the colony, aud wherever they settle, there is to be witnessed increased trado and prosperity. If it were true that these iniquitous " land-grabbers" hindered instead of helped the small settler, their influence might have a tendency to keep people landless, but when they distinctly assist men into a position by which they can themselves become landed proprietors it is an absurdity to maintain that they are inimical to settlement, We have in New Zealand millions of acres of land worth from live shillings to fifty an acre open for purchase or for lease, and while this is the case no man need be landless. Very many men are landless, and will remain so to the pnd of the chapter. Some have not the pluck to go upon land, they are used to Jittlo town comforts and conveniences, aud havo not the courage to " rough it "in the bush. Others never, have a pound in their pocket from one year's end to another, and have not the means even to lease land, Such men are a marvel, they do not beg, they do not steal, they do no.regular work, and yet in some way they live on yoar after year, and" their families get along somehow. The children may occasionally want bread, but tho parent managos to enjoy himsell fairly well. Such men are laudhies, and always will be landless. Again, otlp* men have been once hit with land and are twice shy. They have in the past been landholders, and have had such a sickening experience of the delights of ownership that they prefer beuig landless. Many men, too, can earn far larger incomes in other pursuits than in'cuf'|ivati)}giai)id, and others realize the fact that they ire' physically unfit for outdoor labor. The English or Colonial yeoman, the man who can handle an.axe or a shovel, is not to be made rapidly out of ,any material, There are thousands .of people in' New Zealand whose fathers and forefathers : lwye flot'qeMi

brought up or innured to labor, am who ard no more fit to be put to hart work than a racehorse is to be- pu to a plough. It might, in soini instances, take three generations t< breed the bono and inu3'cle essentia to a good type of colonist. Thousand! of men are,- therefore, from physica causes, landless, and can only bi gradually absorbed in country pur suits. People are landless for reason: such as we have quoted, and alsi because at the present time it is ho altogether easy to make land pay.' I is the land-grabbers, the men will large blocks, possessing capital o: representing it, who are mainly keep Lug New Zealand on its legs b; furnishing produce to pay interest 01 our enormous debts, and by supplyin; colonial labor with a market. Wi ourselves nope yet to see a time whei the demand for small holdings wil break up large properties, but no suol demand now exists, and those win endeavor to persuade people that i does simply mislead them. The pre sent Ministry are throwing the land of the Colony open to rich and poor to young or old. A man can nov purchase fifty or five hundred acres and if he has no money for his pur shase he can get it on deferred pay ments, and if deferred paymeut hamper him he can pay rent for it Every condition now with respect ti tenure and terms is favorable to tli genuine settler, whether;-.such settle be a.man with means or a man with rat them.. We hope to see big land grabbers, middling size land-grabbers Mid little land-grabbers, plent; jspecially of the last class, takinj idvantage of the opportunities nov )ffered,for on the settlement of tin and depends the ability of the colon; ;o sustain its heavy charges for debt ind to surmount its load of difficulty Che section of the press which set ihe small man against the big one vhich tempts the poor man to envy th ich one, or invites the rich man ti lespisethe small one, does an ini nense amount of mischief. It is very lesirable that all classes in the comnunity should work cordially together mder equal conditions for the good of he community. We venture to ,ffirm that fewer men will be landless mder the wiser and more liberal revisions of the present Ministry un under the well meant but miston schemes of .Mr Ballance.