One of the most serious questions awaiting consideration by the next Parliament of New Zealand is that of the administration of the lands of the colony, By this we must not be under stood to mean that the new Parliament should take any rash steps in land legislation, or effect sudden radical changes. What we mean is that they must consider a very grave matter that is daily forcing itself upon the atten tion of the thoughtful, viz: —The fact

that capital is ceasing to flow into the colony. Now the maddest of mad politicians will hardly deny that we must have money spent in the colony and to whom are we to look to quicken the circulation, but to settlers with cash P These people are not coming here. They are going anywhere except to remote Jand overburdened New Zea land. Our schemes of a happy peasantry and of the progress of local industry, will be of no avail whatever if we do not get a few people among us with money to spend in settling them selves down. It is worth while to consider why the march of the capitalists is notNewZealandwards. The fact is the capitalists farmers and would be settlers who have means are deterred by the prohibitive price of land.and the insecurity of tennre, and it will be the business of Parliament (if the colony is to be saved from the absolute ruin that threatens it from this source) sooner or later to amend these defects, to open the land and secure the occupier. What makes the position the, more exasperating is that the great companies who hold our best land and who are composed of British capitalists, who have no interest in the Colony and hardly ever come to look at it (and who by the way pay tax to the Home Government on their income, part of such income being drawn from the lands of New Zealand)—are not now paying any dividend whatever. Nay, further, they are losing money and though they still ask prohibitive prices for the|,land,*they are coming down in their terms. They asked from £25 to £3O an acre awhile ago. Now they would gladly take half the money. 