The Waikato Times. THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 1879.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1111, 7 August 1879, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 7, 1879.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. Here shall the Press the Pkoplb's right maintain, Unawed by influence and anbribed by gain.

We briefly referred a few days since to the nature of the Native Land Bill of the Government. That measure, however, will die still-born, and it is well for the colony that it should do so, for the attempt to perpetuate the pre-emptive right of the Government, which has grown up in spite of direct legislation to the contrary, under the fostering influence of " Orders in Council", would be detrimental to the welfare of both races. • To the Maoris, ns we have oftentimes pointed out, it means simply confiscation where the native owner is iu a position that he must sell, and prohibition from sale at all when he is in a less dependent position. "We guarantee him with the one hand the light to the so : l, and with the other hold him back from utilising it ; for it is preposterous to suppose that the twenty millions of acres hold by some thirty thousand natives of all ages and both sexes, can be ever required for their individual use, or that nineteen twentieths of it can be used by them in any other profitable way than as an article of merchandise. If they have a tight to the soil ao all they have a right to the full, free and unconditional enjoyment of it. We could understand, were the Maori n»w as little alive to the value of his land and as simple at a bargain as in the early missionary days, that the Government might, in such case, feel it a duty to stand in the light of a protector between him and the European. But no such necessity exists, and this is not indeed the position which the Government has taken, o*' which it has ever sought to take. What tho Government has done, is to create a monopoly of land-purchase for itself at the expense of the native owner, and, at the expense of the colony, to obtain an opportunity for making political capital, by raising theory that landsharks would otherwise succeed in absorbing every available acre, but for their action. The land-shark cry is, from the very nature of it, likely to take with the public at first sight, but, on calmer consideration of the matter, its hollowness becomes apparent. The idea is a perfectly absurd one. The whole question narrows itself into a very simple alternative; whether shall we have the native lands locked up, and remain, in the hands of their aboriginal owners —nay, if we are to believe the conditions rumoured, as made between Rewi and the Government, inalienably so—or whethsr shall we allow large large capitalists, in common with others of the general public, to come into a free market and purchaso large blocks of land In the first case, we keep from colonisation the millions of acres now in the hands of the mtives, and exempt these lands and their ocenpanta from bearing a fair share of the burdens of the colony. Because these millions of acres lie in the hands of their original owners, they become none the less improved by the large sums of money the colony is borrowing for Public Works expenditure ; and the native is quite as ready, and quite as able, to take advantage of the value of the "unearned increment" when he does come to sell, as the European speculator, did the land change hands, would be in his turn. But

there is this difference, that while this process of increased value is going on, the us live owner can be made to contribute nothing. Not so with the European —ho is subject to land tax, income tax, highway and county rates, and other and is thus made to contribute his share to the general expenditure in proportion to his lulding. And more, he cannot afford to buy this land and let it lie idle long. Money is worth too much in the colony for that. He must either utilise it himself, or 'allow others to do so, and he thus adds, where the Maori owner did not, to the producing power of the country, and swells the exports of the colony, which must necessarily be increased as the drain upon its resources for interest and sinking fund of loans grow yearly larger. We cannot afford to go on us we have done in the past, with twenty millions of acres in the North Island locked np trom colonisation. For years past tho land purchase operations, of the Government, not of this Government, only hut of a previous Government have been carried on on a very extended scale,<md have cost vast sums cf money—nearly a million has been sunk in the endeavor to create a North Island estate —but what has been the result ? The most unqualified failure. A. large proportion of inferior lands has been acquired and the establish, ment of a middle class of settlers but little forwarded. The system has not worked well, and it is clear that if the bulk of the land of this Island is to come under European colonisation that object can only be effected by leaving the natives free to deal with their European customers first hand. That much land will in many cases find its way into few hands is only to be expected- Bat is that to be considered so objectionable that we should rather it remaininthe hands of the native owner? Shall wo find him less wide-awake to the fact, five or ten years hence, that our public expenditure has enable:! him to ask ten pounds per acre for what he would now ask ten shillings ? Not a bit of it. We shall find him as difficult to deal with as the European capitalist would be, unless, indeed, -by establishing the pre-emptive right of the Crown we rob him, as now, by legal enactment, and Proclamations issued by "Orders iu Council," according to law.

The moment, however, that the land passes into the hands of European capitalists, the work of true colonisation has commenced. As Mr Boaidman very justly remarked, at the late meeting of the New North Island Association. When speaking to the land purchase system, he is reported to have said: " The naraber of men of large capital to buy 10,000, 20,000, or 50,000 acres of land would be very few indeed. It was this jealousy of Mr Brown or Mr Smith "thad had been going on for years, and had kept the lands of -the colony locked up. Al big land purchaser must either selt or cultivate, or he must borrow. If would be a blessing if every acre o land in the country were in the hands of big or little capitalists, for ib would then be of some use. By surrounding purchasers from natives with restrictions, you are putting I natives in the face of the law. You rre killing them by law. This [ province has been ruined by the disastrous system of coddling the Maori. Let him be free to sell if he wishes ; he is wide awake to his own interests." It is just this, and more. He might have gone on to have pointed out that not only as a matter of cause and effect will large estates in this colony be cut up and distributed, but even special force may be brought to bear upsn such estates, to accelerate such action. When once the land passes into the possession of a European owner, subdivision can be easily effected by subsequent taxation of a special nature. This is our safeguard against the passible passing of the public lands into the hands of a few, aud it is a snre one. Meantimo, till the growth needs correction, we can enjoy its benefits. What would Waikato have been, but for Ul3 expenditure of large sums of money on such estates as that of the Swamp Company, and such properties as those of Mr E. B. Walker, Mr Cox, Mr Eiith, and others. la the American States, we read of landowners holding immense tracts of land, and cultivating them too. Yet, even in that democratic country, I there is no cry of alarm raised lest the poor man should be driven from the land; for experience shows that where there is no such thing as family prestige, where the law of primogeniture does not prevail,and where land is too open and marketable a commodity to allow a tenant class, save under exceptional circumstances, to be created, there is a tendency for these large estates to break up rather than to increase in size. A man may create an estate to-day, and his sons within a year of his death may dissipate it on the race-course and elsewhere. There is no such thing as entail, and without ib territorial monopoly cannot be maintained.