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Updated: May 16, 2025
The whole land-laws system should be reorganized, and not until it is reorganized, will decisions be made as promptly as they ought, or will men who have earned title to public land under the statute receive their patents within a reasonably short period.
The prophet pronounced a curse upon those who joined 'land to land, and field to field... that they may be alone in the midst of the earth. One great purpose steadily kept in view in all the Mosaic land-laws was the prevention of the alienation of the land from its original holders, and of its accumulation in a few hands.
There was this similarity, too, between English and American land-laws: the Indians on the land in America had to pay, move or be perforated. For them to pay rent or work out a road-tax was quite out of the question. Indians, like the Irish, will not pay rent, so we were compelled to evict them.
The fundamental principle of these bad land-laws was this: the tenant was compelled to renew his lease from year to year; and whenever, during the year, he had in any way improved the land in his possession, by draining marshes, by reclaiming waste areas, by adding farm-buildings, the "owner" of the land could demand an enhanced rent, as the condition of renewing the lease.
Coming to Canterbury, Otago, and Nelson, they taught the new settlers to look to wool and meat, rather than to oats and wheat, for profit and progress. The Australian coo-ee, the Australian buck-jumping horse, the Australian stockwhip and wide-awake hat came into New Zealand pastoral life, together with much cunning in dodging land-laws, and a sovereign contempt for small areas.
I say nothing about land-laws and so forth, but I will say that those who fancy the towns can survive when the farms are deserted are much mistaken. "Are we wealthy?" "Yes," and "No." We are wealthy in the wrong places, and we are poor in the wrong places; and the combination will end in mischief unless we are very soon prepared to make an alteration in most of our ways of living.
The inhabitants of Ireland shortly before the famine numbered considerably over eight millions. Since that time, there has been a decrease of about four millions a thing without parallel in Christendom. The amendment of the land-laws, which were directly responsible for these evil results, was by no means initiated in consequence of the famine.
In 1891 there were nearly twelve and a half million acres held in freehold. Of these rather more than seven millions were in the hands of 584 owners, none of whom held less than five thousand acres. In spite of land-laws, land-tax, and time, out of thirty-four million acres of land occupied under various tenures, twenty-one millions are held in areas of more than five thousand acres.
'Not even that; an Austrian soldier, a young lieutenant of lancers over here for his leave. 'And why couldn't he shoot, or course, or kiss the girls, or play at football, and not be burning his fingers with the new land-laws? There's plenty of ways to amuse yourself in Ireland, without throwing a man out of window; eh, Adams? And Adams bowed his assent, but did not utter a word.
Thus when the people waking up from the stupefaction that followed on the most tragic period of the famine began to breathe the breath of political life again, and, perceiving the danger that menaced the existence of the peasant classes, set on foot an agitation to procure a reform of the land-laws, the government resolutely opposed the project; defeated the bills which the friends of the tenantry brought into parliament; and took steps, which proved only too successful, for the break up of the organization by which the movement was conducted.
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