, Should any discussion arise upon the suggestion I ,am now making to the Provincial Gorernment ' through your columns, I desire to guard myself from ( any charge of being * mere theorist in these matters. I have watched for a long period of years the course of colonisation, and I have had eminent opportuni ties of collecting faoto, and I have long arrived at , the conclusion that it is the interest of the State to give the land in occupation within certain well defined limits to the first comer. Ido not say that the land should be given free of all cost. The money that a Government spends comes out of the pockets of the people subjeot to that Government, and therefore must not be given reoklessly or unfairly. But we are here in the province of Auckland in precisely the same position that a great number of the pro prietary classes in Ireland were in previous to the Encumbered Estates Court commencing its'operations — we have an immense landed estate without one shilling of revenue accruing therefrom. And we are also in precisely the same position Ireland was at the time I have mentioned. We have for us, and in our circumstances, a large unemployed population, and that population some how or other ia curiously enough reduced to the dangerous position of being- at the verge of the very lowest possible scale of subsistence. lam not now intending to enter upon any inquiry as to how all this came about): that it is so is all that I have at present to deal with. Now, finding that we have surplus land and sur plus labour, I make the attempt of combining them for the purpose of creating what is so muoh wanted —capital. But lam fully aware that the land and the labour cannot be brought together unless by the use of capital. I will leave to another time the con- I sideration of how the capital is to be procured to employ this labour and utilise this land. 