LAND MONOPOLY ITS EEFECT ON IMMIGRATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2477, 26 May 1888, Page 2

LAND MONOPOLY ITS EEFECT ON IMMIGRATION.

TO TIIE EDITOR, Sir, —In your Saturday's issue, you publish a letter by Mr Graham, on More Population necessary. Mr Graham says that neither land monopoly, nor overproduction is the cause of the depression. It is the universal want of confidence. But I venture to think that the fictitious value of land in the past has had a great deal more to do with the depression than Mr Graham appears to think, llow ir.any men have been ruined in Waikato during the last ten years by buying dear land? I emigrated here from the "Old Country, some seven or eight yours ago, under the impression that good land could be bought in New Zealand for a pound an acre from Government. Wliat was my astonishment to find that the Government had no good land for sale whatever, and that I was obliged to buy from private owners for three times that money. A friend who eamc out with mo was so disgusted at this state of things that lie immediately returned to England, and so the colony lost some £20,000, which he brought out. During the past 12 or 1 5 months, I have received three letters from different men at home, all farmers with capital over a thousand pounds each, asking for my advice respecting emigrating to Mew Zealand. Of course in each ease I have warned them against coming here, principally owing to the high price of land. That land monopoly has drivon away population ill the past, I have not the slightest doubt. What inducement does New Zealand hold out to English fanners or labourers compared to Canada or Manitoba, save climate:' None whatever; as you could get better laud given there, than could be bought here for £3 or £4 per acre. That New Zealand requires a great deal more than Boards of Agriculture to establisk confidence and lift it out of depression, and so attract population to its shores, I think any man who thinks at all about the question must admit. Land monopoly, corrupt Government, and huge indebtedness, do not make a country popular in the eyes of intending emigrants, and they (the former) all" flourish amazingly in New Zealand, In your Saturday's issue, you alsu give the opinion of Mr James Mills on the depression. What he recuinmcuds is that owners should realise that their properties are not. worth the fictitious value putuponthem butsellingat a fair value might do something to attract population, is possible I believe, and so life New Zealand out of its depression. —Yours obediently, Waipa.