LAND NATIONALISATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2775, 26 April 1890, Page 2

LAND NATIONALISATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In my young days I read an account of St. George, England's patron saint, how he killed the Dragon, tempus mutatur, we have a latter days'saint, who has reared a dragon and has brought it to New Zealand to devour the Saracens who have bought land, and to take their land for the diagonists to buy cheap whisky and tobacco, silks and satins, and all sorts of fine things, and however outrageous this may be this George has his followers, men who have no sympathy with the farmer, who know nothing about land, and the fanners' feelings and aspirations, their joys and sorrows, who may be men of sense in some things, or may even be honest, but swear by George, or by Jingo, or anything out of the common, others follow for the drinks aud tobacco, or what they can pick up in the scramble, and some anly go in for mischief, any way the farmers should look out, for the dragonists are very cunning, and when they want to suck your blood, they tell you bleeding will do you good, or before swallowing you they cover you with slime, so that you will go easily over, and be taxed quietly to death, and your property be divided amongst them. They use a sort of slime they call " increment " whatever that may be, and say they have as good a right to the land as you, who have bought and paid for it from tho Government at what it asked, and glad to get the money at the time, as it was a big price, and if it is the land they want, they can get plenty more from the Government, «r from private owners, for less than the price you paid for it, with all the " increment" into the bargain, but that's not what will suit them, they like to live in the town at the farmers' expense, until the farmers' improvements the " increment" makes the land and the towns of some value, and then they are on you, they know better, than to work hard and improve land, which is only fit for serfg and sla,ves, which they would have you to be without ownership in the land like Russia before the serfs were freed; or like England in the time of the Barons, or like Ireland of to-day, when the home Government have had to give fifty millions to free the serfs, or tenants, charging them 4 per cent, on value, half what we pay for money, and they only pay for 44 years when the laud is their own. This may be very generous and perhaps right, but it is not just to England and Scotland who also require it, and fifty millions spent to buy land in the colonies might have been as good or a better investment than on Irish peat bogs, as a seeming reward for lswbreaking. Now Mr Editor, suppose this crusade against the landlords is successful, would the country be any better, less poverty, less crime, less polictica! jobbery and corruption, less lavish spending of tho public money, or would the country be more productive. I unhesitatingly say no, but it is an impossibility, the money is not in the world to buy the land and if it is to be paid for in paper, where is the interest to come from, and what about bad seasons, and if the farmers should refuse to pay their rents, or be unable, where are the taxes to come from, the system on a small scale has not worked so well in Ireland as to make it desirable to repeal it, and raise an army of political loafers of middleman to devour the country like locusts. lam etc., Mangapai. '