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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 26

II

II.

I had intended to treat of the land systems of other European countries than those mentioned, but I find it would occupy too much space to do so, and it is unnecessary for the purposes of the argument. The Commune, the Saxon and Prankish modes of holding land, and the feudal system, are the keys to the principal land tenures prevailing in Europe, and with them in his hands, the student can gather for himself a competent knowledge of the subject, and learn how it has come to pass that in England and elsewhere, one man is lord of a vast tract of country, while another has not an inch of land to call his own, and is only permitted to dwell on God's free earth by sufferance, as it were.

Let us sum up and frame a general conclusion. Leaving Russia aside, the characteristics of the seed from which the present land organisations of the principal countries of Europe, with their several branchings, have grown, may be described page 22 as the recognition of the principle that the land possessed by a community belongs to that community as a body, and it, for the sake of convenience, portions of it are given to individuals, the gift is made on condition that they shall guard it from invasion and render peculiar services to the State, which, if left unfulfilled, will entail forfeiture of their domain. The military protection of the soil was the central spring of the feudal system but the power which the system, with its compact machinery, vested in the gentry gradually reduced all rural residents of a lower grade of society to a state of dependence, more or less servile, upon their social superiors; while the latter, step by step, converted their military tenures into freeholds, and got rid of the peculiar burdens imposed upon the land. By the days of the Commonwealth the large landholders in England had reduced their feudal burdens to a mere remnant, and taking advantage of the times, cleverly contrived to shift their money dues on to the shoulders of the mercantile class, then just springing into life, but too weak, and perhaps not sagacious enough, to repel the imposition. The latter, indeed, have since amply revenged themselves; but as for the poor in means, they may truly say that, if the old knights and barons chastised them with whips, their commercial masters have chastised them with scorpions. In the days of William the Norman, Brute Force trod upon the necks of the poor; now, it is Brute Wealth. The feudal dues having been shunted off, the landholders got military tenures formally abolished in the reign of Charles II., when they found themselves, instead of being military tenants, hereditary masters of the soil.

In Russia, the right of the entire community to the use and possession of the soil exists in its naked form; and it has been left for New Zealand and other British Colonies to start on their career with the motto emblazoned on their shields, that any man with sufficient money in his purse, however basely he may have got it, shall be entitled to buy the absolute dominion of as much land as he pleases, unshackled by legal burdens, whose æsthetic glories he may rigidly prohibit all other human beings from enjoying, and whose material benefits he may permit to lie wholly undeveloped, even though thousands of his fellow-creatures be starving. One can understand a man who distinguished himself at Cressy or Agincourt—a Marlborough or a Wellington—receiving an absolute grant of land as a gift from the nation in acknowledgment of his public services. A Nelson, preserving his country's liberties—perhaps her national existence—and surrounding her with a corona of naval glory, might well be rewarded with a portion of the soil which he had defended at the risk of his own life to keep for himself and his heirs page 23 for ever. If an eminent statesman, or any man who performs great services to the State, be endowed in this manner, a cogent reason for the distinction is apparent, although, even in such cases, the utmost care ought to be taken not to infringe too far upon the integrity of the public domain. But why should Mr John Jones, who would laugh at the idea of any man sacrificing himself for the public welfare as ridiculous, and only credible to unsophisticated youths, whose life has been one long devotion to the acquisition of money, be permitted to appropriate to himself forty or fifty, or one hundred thousand acres of land, or any greater area which he has means to buy, more especially when there are thousands of men in the country he inhabits far better, morally and intellectually, than himself, and who, for that very reason, have failed to heap up as large a pile of wealth as he has done? What has been the career of three-fourths of the rich men of the Colony? Is it not because they are hard-hearted, careless of right and wrong, willing to seize every occasion to add to their golden store, however much their fellows may suffer thereby, it all being in the way of business," that they grow rich? Had they been better men, they would have remained poor. Why then should the State reward them for their selfishness?

Doubtless in other countries than New Zealand rich, men of this character frequently exercise a highly pernicious influence; but not satisfied with enduring the evils which prevail elsewhere, we are heaping up fresh troubles for ourselves by bestowing all the honor and power of the country upon these bad productions of modern society. Not content with letting them have a large share, we must needs give them pretty nigh the whole. Money, no matter how got, is becoming the sole passport to the principal public offices—to all the public offices, indeed, which carry any political influence with them. The Upper House of Assembly has been openly surrendered to the rich class, on the plea that it should represent "property." The Constitution Act does not say that it should represent "property." The disease, too, is getting worse. The character of our rulers, great and small, has sadly deteriorated of late, and the body politic has been driven along the high road of moral degradation with accelerated speed during the last three or four years by the reckless loan expenditure of the General Government, originally devised by unscrupulous land and mercantile speculators for their personal benefit, and since continued amid their frantic shouts and abuse of all who objected to their proceedings. The lower-most stratum, morally and intellectually speaking, is being elevated to the top. That will tell in time. The Colony sustains a direct loss by allowing its affairs to be managed by those least capable of administering them, and an indirect page 24 but perhaps greater one by the crushing of the energies of its best citizens.

It is sometimes urged, in response to regrets at our lack of culture and the undue honor paid to vulgar and base minded men because they are rich, that "we have no leisured class in the Colony." That, however, is begging the question. A leisured class does not exist simply because there is such an insatiable grasping after wealth, and so much honor is paid to it that men never think of retiring from business until pallida Mors, who_________æque pulsat pede pauperum tabernas__________Regumque turres___________imperatively commands them to do so. There are plenty of men in the Colony richer than three-fourths of the leisured class at Home and in the prime of life who would form a leisured class under the influence of a healthy public opinion, but they see that the only path to distinction lies through the golden gate, and they consequently seek no other. Their sons are brought up on the same principle. How many Colonial-born young men, whose parents are in easy circumstances, are devoting themselves to any nobler pursuit than that of making money—and to that alone? Has the reader, being himself an old colonist and capable of judging, met with one? Nevertheless, I do not know a country on the face of the globe which offers more facilities for the development of the higher faculties of the mind and the rearing up of a truly distinguished community than New Zealand. Socially, it is unhampered by the ties which are woven through long ages; politically, its people enjoy the utmost freedom; æsthetically, it contains untrodden fields of research in the brightest regions. Who that has seen the lofty and rugged mountains of the Southern Alps, with their snowy tops melting in the sky, trending away into the illimitable distance; or penetrated their deep and forest-clad gorges, with roaring torrents weltering down from the everlasting glaciers; or visited the sounds on the West Coast, with their rocky walls shooting up into the heavens, and their deep pellucid water lying still, close sheltered from the storm which rages on the wide Pacific but a few miles off; or sailed along the southern shores of Cook's Strait, gazing on the picturesque hills, wooded to the water's edge, and casting their shadows upon the quiet bays and the charming islets that lie scattered everywhere about the water; or has roamed through the dense forests of the North Island, with their glorious pine trees and fern and palm groves, and clear streams gurgling amongst the boulders, and sweet retreats fit for fairies; or has looked from the heights of the Coromandel peninsula upon those wonderful amphitheatres of rock and hill and grove which page 25 there lie exposed to view, and the ocean, in the far distance, with dark green islands resting like gems upon its purple bosom—who that has witnessed these scenes, or many, many others in New Zealand, but must recognise that this country is endowed with charms enough to kindle the imagination to its liveliest mood, and to produce poets and painters and followers in every walk of art of the highest excellence!

My theory is supported by the census returns, which disclose the fact that already the population of the towns is augmenting in a vastly greater ratio than that of the country. This is seen by comparing the tables of the census taken in 1871, with the returns of that taken in 1874. To appreciate their meaning we must keep in mind the circumstances of New Zealand : that it is a country where manufactures are only budding into life, and where millions and millions of acres of land are lying waste and still belonging to the Crown. During the period of three years under notice, considerable efforts were made to increase the agricultural population, not, indeed, by the General Government, which contented itself with shooting the human sweepings of Europe into our ports in order to supply the demand for cheap labor; but by the Provincial Governments, which, urged on by the popular cry, secured powers from the General Assembly to throw open blocks of land for sale on deferred payments, and to reserve tracts for special settlement. All such efforts, though excellent in their way, must, however, fail of their end while the root of the cancer is left untouched. The sufferings of the patient may be mollified, but unless the source of the malady be reached, he will succumb at last. So here. Freehold estates of undue magnitude derange the entire system of the body politic. There may be Crown land unoccupied, but that is not to the purpose. Great freeholds and the immoderate growth of towns are correlatives, and the two swell as the alienation of the soil from the Crown goes on. A large freehold seems to absorb the little ones by a species of attractive force. So the bigger a town gets the more rapidly it distances its rivals. Let us observe now the change which occurred in the distribution of the population during the three years between 1871 and 1874. When the census of 1871 was taken, there were 256,393 Europeans settled in the Colony, of whom 103,785 resided in towns—an astonishing proportion, truly. The census of 1874 was made in March of that year, and gave a total European population of 299,514; while the inhabitants of the towns (allowing 5,000 for the suburbs of Dunedin) numbered 139,223. Otherwise, out of a total increase of 43,121 souls, 35,438 was due to the augmented urban population! That is a fact which cannot be gainsaid; nor is there anything exceptional in the period to account for it. It is the page 26 natural and inevitable consequence of our blindly repeating here the follies which have placed a heavy and painful burden upon the shoulders of the Mother Country. Look at the condition of Victoria! Its urban population is 424,993, and its rural 355,369. Will any political economist assert that such a state of affairs is a healthy one? If these things occur in the green tree, what will happen in the dry?