The Waikato Times.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1020, 28 January 1879, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. ***** Hero shall the Press the People's right maintain, CJnawed by ina^enoi and cmbtibed by gain. TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1879. We caunof, congratulate oar coir temporary, tbe ' Horakl,' on its panacea for the regeneration of Waikato, or, indeed, for the discovery that any panacea is needed. Advocating, as we do, the imposition of a laud tax m New Zealand, not so much for tbe purpose of creating revenue as for the object ot breaking up those large estates where men, for purely speculative purposes add acre to acre, and block to block, till they own a whole country side, or a county itself, we cannot see that there is need to carry the process of disintegration to to i, low a level. And, least of all, should we say that a land tax need have been called into existence, had the land throughout the country been held m quantities such as is the case m the Waikato and Waipa Counties. The ' Herald,' however, thinks differently. A. special reporter has visited the Waikato. A ehiel has been amongst us, taluu notes, and the result of that viait has been, that the ' Herald' calmly tells us that, as regards the agricultural progress of the district, the chausce " is not so marked as* an " iuterval of eight years, m a district " containing all the elements of agvi- " cultural prosperity would have led "us It anticipate. The districts of " Te Awaraufcu, Kihikihi, Rangia- " oh ia, Patorangi, Whatawhata, &c, " with an unrivalled climate, and " n large proportion of them blessed " with Rome of the most fertile soil " m New Zealand, have been oom- " paratively stagnant during that " period. A few farms and orchards, •• too few and fat* between, are a " sufficient indication of what might " be effected under sufficient impulse " and with efficieut labor. A large " proportion of the pridcipal settlers 11 are, and have been, limiting their " farming operations almost wholly "to breeding cattle. One result of " this is that there are a great deal " too many cattle and a great deal " too few people. There are several " farms, containing from 400 to 1000 " acres, on which not more than < { frotp tljrae to £ye persons are'

'"employed. The proportion of " lmmun beings which sucli areas of " Idml might support profitably " oug-ht to be from 30 to 50 " Our confcomporHiy, haviug diagnosed the disease, then ijoes on to point out the euro : " For stich cases as " (-hose m Wufpa aucl Wuikato, the " land tax is now app irently the " only remedy." We must join issno with our contemporary, not only upon this, but upoa the main points contained m the article under notice. And, first of all, we revert to fcho charge that the change which has takea place daring the past eight years is not so marked as it should have been. The charge resolves itself into this — not that fewer holdings have been occupied than should have been, but that holdings then and sin^e occupied have not been fully utilised. The non-taking up of land for settlement is clearly not a fault to be attributed to the settlers; all that they are responsible for is the use they have made of their own locations. Now, none can know better than the ' Herald ' the difficulties which have beset the path of settlement m Waikato ivithia the last eight Jyears. Is the mnr ler of Sullivan, are thecanstautly-recnrring scares, which drove the women and children from their farms — aye, and the men, too, — of so old a date that the ' Herald ' has forgotten them ? The murder of Sullivan occurred so lately back as the last six years. Yeb, m despite of these exceptional hindrances to settlement — despite the fact that it is only within the last twelve or eighteen months that the railway has practically tapped the producing districts of Waikato, the production of the district has increased at the following rate, a change quite marked enough, we should have said, to have satisfied auy reasoiißble person. A reference to the census of 1871 gives the following agricultural returns for that ! year. Under the head of Waikatj, with which at that time Waipa was included m one electoral district, we find then* were of wheat 13^1 acres ; oats, 37b" acres; potatoes, 350 acres; m sown grasses, 2-5,191 acres. If we turn to the latest statistics published, we find that there are now m wheat 910 acres ; m oats, 1,182 acres; m potatoes, 849 acres; and m sown grasses, 82,680 acres-— a tolerably marked improvement to have been effected by a population which even now only numbers 4,476 souls, exclusive of the nonagricultural population of the Borough of Hamilton. Other crops than those giveij, and cattle and sheep, have increased m like proportion. Again our contemporary complains " that a large proportion of " the principal settlers bave been " and arc limiting their farming " operations almost wholly to breed- " ing cattle." And necessarily so. It is all very well te say that " there ought to be 10,000 acres under wheat m this district, producing on an average 25 bushels to the acre, a total of two hundred fifty thousand bushels anually, giving m its production employment and happy homes t) 10,000 people." This sounds vezy prettily upon paper, but wheat production resolves itself like everything else into this simple question, will it pay ? the way to enable Waikato settlers to grow 10,000 acres of wheat each year is to give them reasonably cheap labar, not to impose on them a land tax, ' as apparently the only remedy." Settlers cannot afford to grow wheatat present relative prices of manual labir and whtat. Take the ' Herald ' at ita own figures, and how far would the price ot 250,000 bushels of wha«»t, say at 4s 6d per bushel, or ,£56,200 altogether, go m providing employment for 10,000 people, independently of the cost of seed, rent oj land, and other expenses beyond those of meer man ml labor. AcC3rdir.g to the ' HeraldV own account, the farms complained of have an average area of only 500 acres, yet, it is "to burst up these big estates" that that paper gravely recommends " the land tax as the only remedy/ ! Our contemporary had better go one step further, and < recommend the cutting up the Waikato into building lots and its incor poration into the borough of Auckland. Space will not allow us to further discuss the article inquestion. On the policy enunoiated for the sale of lands by Government only on certain conditions, and on the 'Herald's' ! remarks upou the influence on setlernent m Waikato which' the militia settlements have exercised, we shall reserve our opinions for a future occasion.