THE LAW OF ENTAIL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2780, 8 May 1890, Page 2

THE LAW OF ENTAIL.

TO THE KDUOn. Sin, —If there were no law of entail in England there would now be no large estates there. This is so evident that I will not insult yam , readers by explaining how. The large land-owners in England themselves had no hand in the matter of their, owning territories. That being so it is silly to denounce them as robbers. For fifteen yearn Sir George Grey has been declaiming against these large land-owners. If Sir George Grey had wished to instruct his hearers, or if he was in earnest and bad a wish—a sincere wish —-that the evil of holding great estates should cease he would have denounced the cause and not the effect. Denouncing and declaiming against the owners of large estates will never make these estates one acre less. The day is not at hand, nor ever will be, when the word owner has lost its power. There is a hale about the word, and it has snch significance that all abstract theorists will never do away with. If the law of entail were completely done away, these large estates would gradually melt away. There is nothing man could do to prevent them from disappearing. No doubt among the Luge owners who, with their predecessors have held the estates for 500 years, there aro some of them, even in this present time, with whom a sort of feudal pride would be stronger than the natural ties ot loving and giving to-each child alike. But these would be few, and even with these few it would have no eifect, for wealth cannot bo kept. Ono man makes and another who succeeds him .spends. Mr Editor, for all these years 1 have never known Sir G. Grey in any ono of his speeches instruct, inform, or educate his hearers, never during all these years has he ever mentioned the law of entail. There is a reason for this, that reason being that it would have put it out of his power to rouse the masses against the Luge land owners of New Zealand. He tells his hearers about the large land owners of England, and says the same will happen here ; all the time he knowing that there are no entailed estates here, and that for estates to descend from father to son here as it has done England is impossible. If Sir G. Grey wished to instruct his hearers he would say as follows : —"My dear fiiends, there is a saying in Lancashire that there is only three generations between Clogs and Clogs. The make- of the money was at first a man of Clogs ; his son, with top boots, fooled or lost the money, his son was back to Clogs again. "My dear friends, you think the world is not evbiily divided, one man in the south owns a million of acres, through there being no law of entail hero he will divide his estate among his children ; they will lose it or spend it, and your descendants will be the owners of it, for the rich become poor and the poor become rich. My dear young friends, this is a grand country where you may, every one of you, if you are so minded, become owners of property and sit under your own vine and fig-tree. My dear young friends, in this blessed country every one of you may enjoy the grandest and most seraphic of all feelings—that is, love's sweet dream—without being afraid of not being able to get married. All you young mon have to do is go and take up 50 acres on deferred payments ; struggle and strive, and don't be faint-hearted ; the other one— the dear creature —can go into service, and so remit you her earnings for a year or two to enable you to make a home ; and then, Hallelujah !" If Sir George wereto talk in that style, he would be a blessing instead of a curse. His speeches are nothing but sorrel and docks and poisonablo weeds. What is the use of saying God made the land for the people. He has not done so, for if a division of the land were to take place to-day, He has so made the people that to-morrow some would have much lund and others would iiave none. Daes Henry George, Sir George Grey, and Mr Parr, of Hamilton, think they are greater than tho Creator. What fools they must be to think they can re-make man against his construction of what man is.—Yours truly, Ha'.iaph'i, Harapipi, 17th April, 1800.