THE BIG ESTATES.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 3008, 24 October 1891, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE BIG ESTATES.

I TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In my letter sent you the other day I said that but for the big estates wc would still be living in shanties and be few in uumbcra. I have been thinking I have either in that letter said too much or said too little. I will now rectify that. Some fifty years ago New Zealand was known to very few. Its existence was not known to all and sundry. The bulk of the population of England may have heard there was such an island or islands ; some knew there was a New Zealand from the fact that there was a Missonary Society to Christianise the Maoris and to which Society they were asked on Sundays to put a penny or a shilling in the plate. Others may have heard there was a New Zealand from the fact of them having parents or brothers who had been along its shores and in its seas catching whales. Fifty years ago, more or less, the white population in New Zealand was very few. aud was composed of tho few missionaries and a number of runaway whaler-seamen who had become Pakeba Maoris. If tho squatters had not somes it is reasonable to suppose that the sons aud daughters of the Missionaries would also have become Pakeha Maoris. There could have been nothing else looked for. Mr Editor, In my last letter when I said that we would still be few in number and living in shanties, there may have been many a settler in the Waikatowho came here with from one to ten thousand pounds have said that " Harapepe" was cracked, for how could they with those ten thousand pounds be living in shanties, i»nd how could the big estates have assisted them to built their substantial dwellings. I would remind these Waikato settlers that for them to como here the country had to bo to a certain extent progressed ; I would aslt these Waikato settlers how many years it would have taken a few Pakeha Maoris to progress the country to that state of progression which had to be before these settlers could or would come here? Mr Editor, clearly but for the squatters these settlers would still, with their thousands of pounds, be in the Old Country. Whether they would rejoice or sorrow at that is foreign to the question. I also in my letter the other day said it was owing to the big estates that Yogel got the loans. Perhaps I was also too abrupt in that statement ; if so, I will now rectify it. English capitalists will not lend money upon a myth; they must have a substance in the shape of production and export as a haws to show that interest may be expected for the money lent. If it had not been for the squatters with their wool this basis would not have been, and consequently the money would then not have been lent. Mr Editor, I was well pleased with Dr. Laishley's letter in the Herald on tho exodus ; I was well pleased with his text that the big estates are not an evil ; I would have bean still better pleased (I am not finding fault) if he had taken a stronger text, that text being that the big estates are a positive and certain good. Some six months ago I wrote you a letter which yon did not publish. You did not give me a reason for not printing the letter. I imagined it was from something I said in the letter about a certain J.l', that may be or not be. You, no doubt, had good and proper reasons and you are allowed the privilege of printing or not printing, as you think proper. In that letter I said chat if the big estates comprised ten millions of acres of land, aud if they were divided into one thousand acre farms, it would require ten thousand men to take these thousand acre farms. I asked, where were these ten thousand men with capital to farm these farms. I asked if there were one thousand, I asked if there were five hundred men in New Zealand in a position to do so. I now say that as there are not such nun it would be damnable folly to burst up these big estates aud so lose their production. Till the present waste Government lands are taken up it would he suicide to do away with the big estates. No doubt here aud there there is one to be found who would personally rejoice at getting a thousand acres of land belonging to tho big estates, but these isolated men are not to be takeu into consideration. The good of the country as a whole is what is to be considered ; aud this New Zealand will never be right till that is the rule above all rules. When I refer to one here and there I refer to those who had capital to farm these thousand acres.—Yours truly, Harapepe.