The Unemployed.

There has also been the question that has vexed us, that has vexed previous Ministers, that has vexed Governments not only in New Zea-land, not only in the neighboring colonies, not only in England and the United States—you can hardly name a country in the world where it is not periodically vexatious—that of having men able and strong to work demanding work because they say they are unemployed. It is a serious question. How is it to be dealt with? We said it was only to be dealt with in two ways. We must try, so far as we can, to prevent men from crowding into the towns and depending upon stray work there, to see if they will not make permanent homes for themselves in the country. Though they may not be able to keep themselves and their families on pieces or patches of land that are given to them, yet they will always have a home, and if they can get employment for two or three months in the year outside their homes they will "be able at all events to keep themselves and their families from want, keep them in comfort, and not be called "the unemployed," Hence we saw the need of encouraging what was called village settlements, to meet this unemployed agitation. I am glad to say that especially in the north, in Auckland, and also indeed in many parts of the middle Island, and also in Wellington, and up north of Wairarapathese village settlements are likely to become a great success. Of course no 'one imagines that every settler who goes to a village settlement is going to be a successful settler. There will be a percentage of failures just as there is a percentage of failures amongst big runholders and farmers, however small they may be; but we saw that that was one way of dealing with this unemployed agitation—that it was one way of fixing people to the soil; and it was one vay also, we page 10 hope, of helping those who needed assistance, who said they were ready and willing to work, but who had not either the opportunity or ability of attaching themselves to any permanent employment. That is how we proceeded to deal, not only with the passing of the Land Act, 1885, and the various amendments, which would take me too long a time to go into, but also in administering the Act in our Lands Department. And I say this: that the whole tendency of modern thought now is towards this goal. We may put it off here as we please, but we have got to meet this question in the future, and it would be better for New Zealand if her people would justly and calmly consider whether it is wise that we should as a State allow the lands to pass from us, and as the lands pass from us have no control over them for future settlement. Do not imagine, as some politicians hare understood it, that once you sell all the land the land question is settled, That is when the land question begins. Go to Ireland : What is the trouble there? It is not so much about political opinion. The land question has been at the bottom of all the agitation in Ireland. Go to some parts of Scotland, and what is the agitation there about? All about the land question. And the time will come when that land question will be the question in other countries where it is apparently unknown at present. I ask the people whether it would not be wise for them now, when they have the chance, and when they have millions of acres—whether something should not be done so as to provide that in the future we should not have those dangerous agrarian agitations, those dangerous revolutions that we see afflicting other countries, but that the State should hold such a possession over the land as to provide for its future settlement, and as to prevent its undue monopoly. What do we find even in this colony? We find from many parts—especially in the Middle Island, the cry coming up to us : Here we have a township almost wiped out; here we have almost a district wiped out. Why? Here you can go for miles and miles upon one man's property with perhaps a solitary shepherd's hut—land that could grow the finest wheat in the world. Is that state of things to be allowed to continue? What has been demanded from us? It has been demanded from us that the State should repurchase back the land. I say is that creditable to us as a colony ?—to us as a people who are to found a new nation?—is it creditable to us that so soon in our history as a colony—to us as a colony that is not yet fifty years old—that we should be asked to buy back for the State for the settlement of people on the land, land that has been alienated within fifty years? The very fact that there is such a demand for a bill of that character is sufficient to show that our land legislation in the past has not been on a proper or satisfactory basis, And I said at Invercargill this: that it was misleading public opinion for any person to go through the length and breadth of this colony and say the one thing needed in this colony was a bill for purchasing back the large estates, whilst we had so many millions of acres still in the possession of the State. Aye, to purchase back by the bill proposed without any guarantee that this land would remain the State's. On the contrary the provisions of the bill of Sir George Grey were such that within a few years the land became private property, and there was no provision to stop the accumulation of estates—no provision whatever to stop the adding thousands of acres and thousands of acres until within twenty or thirty years we would be thrown back to the same position as we were in before. Now believe that this question of purchasing large estates in some districts in the colony will have to be dealt with. I believe that we will be able perhaps at the next meeting of page 11 Parliament to submit a bill that will deal with this question, and in this bill we shall take care to provide for this : That the land shall not become private property; it must remain in some way State land, and the State must have control over it. I ask those who demand this bill for the purchase of large estates, and I ask the people of this Colony, what the very mention of such a bill means? I say the very mention of such a bill is to condemn for ever the idea that the fee simple, as it is termed, in land can be a permanent tenure where there is democracy. And what has an eminent Belgian economist said, Laveleye. He says that if these new democracies were only wise they would take care to provide that the State at all events should have its hand over the land—that there should be no undue monopoly—that the land should remain for the people and not remain for a few. We say that that is the object of our administration of the land. We say at the same time it was the object of a former administrator of the land, Mr Rolleston, and I only regret that as yet those people in this Colony who ought to be our best supporters in dealing with this question—those people who ought to see that it affects them and their children—the small farmers in this Colony, have not risen to a conception of what this question means; and unfortunately many of them are found voting along with the land-sharks and monopolists who hold so much of the fertile lands of this Colony in their hands. (Cheers,) I have now done with the land question,