Limitation of the Estates

—the most important, in his opinion, of the whole of the provisions of the proposed Bill. They would agree with him that for a country like this one of the greatest matters of statesmanship should be to bring labor and land together—to bring upon their fertile land men and women who could lead healthy, happy lives; who could add to their own good

fortune and the prosperity of the country. He believed that the true aim and the best aim they could set before them was by hook and by crook to extend the settlement their lands. He took leave to think even the town of Palmerston would be a bigger and a better and a more prosperous place if more of the areas round about were settled more closely than they now were.—(Applause.) Those who had not been Hawke's Bay really knew nothing of the evils of large holdings. He would give a few figures which would set any responsible man thinking, if he did not know them already. The return he quoted from was one of a few years ago—1903. It was the last available return, and what was contained therein had not substantially altered. It was table 6 of Parliamentary Paper B, page 20. It contained the list of proprietors who owned 10,000 acres and over. The number was nearly 200, and (hey owned 5,000,000 acres. That was about 7,800 square miles of good country. Sixty of these—there might be a little less now, but not much—were in Hawke's Bay, and they owned a total of 1,200,252, or on an average of more than 20,500 acres, all, or nearly all, open to railway. The country was well roaded, the railways ran right through much of it. It was supplied by all public services, telephones, post offices, and so on, There they had an area held by sixty men, which, if divided into 300-acre blocks, would settle 4,200 settlers and their families.—(Applause.) That was not all. There was in Hawke's Bay, some of the richest land in the colony. Probably there was no other province so rich in good land as the province of Hawke's Bay. It provoked their indignation that these men held in their iron grasp all these big estates,

some of them over 50,000 acres in area, and it drove men back to the remoter parts of the colony—had driven them back from Hawke's Bay to the foot of the Ruahine Ranges. Let them contrast the east and the west. Contrast Taranaki with Hawke's Bay. Taranaki had been won largely from the forest; the settlers of Tiranaki had to hew their homes in many cases out of dense forests, and they had done it. They found in Taranaki over thirteen persons to the square mile, and in Hawke's Buy, which was much richer, they found nine persons. Here lay the main task; the best task the Government could take up was the adoption of some scheme by which these huge holdings would yield to closer settlement, and give place to men and women and children. He would like them to remember that there was not only an advantage to the individual by this closer settlement, but if they took the total product obtained from these large estates when cut up they would find that had been doubled, and in many cases more than doubled. He had fought in different courts the great Hatuma case, and finally the State acquired the estate. When the case was last before the Court Chief Justice Prendergast was told that this would be a ghastly mistake, and that Hatuma was producing more sheep and wool and other products than if they divided it up between 150 settlers. Mr Ritchie had informed him it had doubled the products it had under the single hand of Mr Russell, who owned it previously. There was an economic gain, and not an economic loss, in this division of land among men who were prepared to work for their own good and for the good of the whole community.