Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/96

 being given them, as title, in the form of Crown grants. “Put not your trust in princes,” not even in such a boasted security as the Government of Great Britain, which permits one of her youngest colonies, by puerile and iniquitous legislation, to break with impunity her most solemn pledges to her own subjects.

The New Zealand farmer, besides all this, has to bear the burden of taxation. The business man is lightly taxed. There is no limit to the value of his possessions in town property. He may acquire this to the value of millions of pounds, and no one can say him nay. Surely the prosperity of a country depends largely on the farmers, and the large farmer requires more skill and administrative ability in working his large farm, than a small farmer requires in working his small one. If, then, this breaking up of farms in New Zealand goes on, we shall eventually have a state of affairs like that obtaining to-day in Italy, where the farmers are as poor as crows.

If the farmers of New Zealand do not wake up and combine for the protection of their own interests, their day will pass, and they will drop steadily behind, losing the power of assertion, and falling gradually to the level of agricultural labourers.