Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] THURSDAY NOVEMBER 17,1892.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4271, 17 November 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 17,1892.

Bhno the extended tithe of the Waieaeapa Daily, with which'it is lOBNTIOAIi

second edition

We copy from a Christouurob contemporary the following description of agricultural Eussia, in order to show how the ideal land tenure, for which the New Zealand Government yearns, works out in practice—

"Russia is evidently wasting roagnlbV cent resources, Intended by nature to bo a great agricultural country, she has adopted an economic system which is artificial and false. No liner land exists than tho' black soil,' which iB capable of yielding abundant harvests, but the ignorance of the people, backed up by worse ignorahce on the part of the lawmakers and law-administrators, has reduced produotivo powor to a minimum. Land iB held by individuals not as individuals, but as members of a strictly defined village community, and as the members of the population increase, a rearrangement has to be made so that one eapable villager shall possess as much as another. The evils of this system- a system which Is the ideal of Socialism—wero shown when twenty years ago it was foisted on the German colonies established by the Empress Catherine. Hitherto the colonists had been tho most successful cultivators of the soil in Russia, but the adoption of the communal system has resulted in poverty and ruin. Nobody cares to wake the most of the laud when the fruition of his labour will fall to others, and in the rapid decadence of the German colonies is to be found an object lesson in the probable results of a Socialistic regimi,"

A paragraph on these lines may at some distant date be published on New Zealand. Here, as in Russia, we have adopted an economic system which is artificial and false, and our productive power has been lessened by the ignorance of our legislators and rulers, We have not quito reached the communal system yet, but we arej making rapid strides towards it, When once this goal is made we may possibly secure the periodical famines whioh are characteristic of Russia, Our colonial policy now lessens pro* duction and increases population and its development must MBult in calamity. In no oivilised country has the State ownership of land been a success and though it may be a plucky thing for New Zealand to give the other oountrics of the globe a lead, it is exceedingly foolish to talto sfloh a leap in the dark, The British race has made a successful colonising record in Amorica and elsewhere for centuries on the basis of individual freeholds, but the teaobings and experience of hundreds of years are to be thrown away because the Trade Unions of the large towns in this Colony have advanced Socialistic ideas, and professional polidoiaos trade on the ignorance and prejudice of discontented people who have an idea that the State may be able to do for them things which they are unable to do for themselves, -