THE ELECTIONS.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1115, 16 August 1879, Page 2

THE ELECTIONS.

Sm, — I trust you will allow me space for a few remarks, in answer to a correspondent in yesterday's Times, anent the coming elections. " White or Black, not Grey," must, I think, belong to the landsharking fraternity by his attack on Sir Georgo Grey, for the very principles which, at the coining elections throughout the colony, will place Govervment suplorters at the head of the poll. He tries to draw a red herring across the scent, and shelters himself, as a land-shark, behind a comparatively respectable class to which ,he does not belo ag — the squatter. It is not against the squatter who uses the land, and from whom the land, merely held under license from the Crown, can be sold to bona fide selectors, that Sir George Grey wars, but the class of men who, purchasing the freehold outright, leave the greater part of their land unused and uncultivated, to grow valuable through the iraprpvements made by small settlers in the vicinity, and by the expenditure, by the colnny, of large sums of borrowed money on public works. These men, whether they hold to sell again, or to add acre to acre and house to house, till the poor are driven from the land, are the men whom the people of JNew Zealand and Sir George Grey war against. These are they, who are justly called "landsharks, and unmitigated robbers of the poor man." What do they do for the country ? Literally nothing . Of what value to the public are the few paltry works they carry out, compared with what would be the result of settling the same large tracts of land with scores and hundreds of families of small, but independent settlors. Even in this part of the country, the evil is growing to such an extent, that it thretens to swallow up real colonisation. In the Piako district you have not only half a country-side taken up by a joint stock company, but the lands are held in large estates not farms. If you look on the other side of Hamilton, you see a large tract, extending from that settlement quite to Ohaupo, in the hands of a single individual, and comparatively unproductive. On beyond Cambridge, will be found the same thing. The lands are fast being gathered into estates of from two thousand to a hundred thousand acres. Now, Sir, I would ask " White or Black, but not Grey," if this is what he calls the settlement of the lands by the people of the colony — if he believes it is using the lands for the benefit of the many, or simply for that of the few — if it is not creating an aiustocratic class to escape from the grinding power of which is the aim of every European people not yet free, and has driven nine-tenths of her present inhabitants to New Zealand ? .Let him answer this fairly, and he must confess that Sir George Grey, as leading and directing the popular movement, is acting in the best interest of the settlers, and deserving of their confidence. As to the Thames- Waikato Railway, that I am willing to admit will not bear touching upon. It is a mistake, however, to saddle the Premier with a sin committed in another department altogether, that of the Minister of Public Works. Sir George Grey had no interest in leaving undone the Waikato end of the line, which was authovised, and commencing the Thame.s end, which was not authorised. He stood well enough with his constituents, without needing to pander to them in such a dishonest scheme as that. The Minister for Public Works must answer for his own sin. Your correspondent says, let us support measures, and so say I, but at the same time let us support the men who will fairly and faithfully carry these measures out. The Opposition claim, the liberal policy of the Government as theirs, now that they see it is the policy of the people^of New Zealand, but they only seek to be elected to carry to out, in order that they may the more easily be enabled to strangle and destroy it. The electors will, I trow, have nothing to do with such wolves in shecps clothing, but will demand from every candidate who comes forward, an unqualified pledge, to support the man whom the people have chosen to be their loader — I am, &c, Elector.