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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 365, 17 October 1889, Page 2

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The death of “Ready-money” Robinson has again raised a vigorous cry of the “land for the people," and when the question is considered in application to the Cheviot estate, even a Tory among Tories cannot deny the effectiveness of the illustration. The Cheviot estate, which belonged to the deceased gentleman, consists'of 100,000 acres, the whole of which is laid out on a magnificent scale. It has now been devised to two or three daughters of the late Mr Robinson, the daughters being married, The Oamaru Mail makes the following interesting remarks on the subject This property, which in itseit constitutes a whole county, is valued at ,£300,000. Mr Robinson’s Cheviot property is only one of many abnormally large properties owned by private individuals in New Zealand, but it is one of the largest. So large is it that it constitutes a whole county, of which the owner was County Council, Road Board, and almost absolute monarch. He, of course, paid no local rates, because there was no one except himself to whom to pay them, and, though he kept the roads on his own estate in order at his own cost, that was a very small matter compared with the advantages he gained through the colonial expenditure in the process of colonisation. The fortune that Mr Robinson accumulated was but little due to his personal efforts. It was the result of a cheap-land policy and the sacrifices of the whole body of colonists. The day will come when facts such as these will form the basis of a reform whereby a landless population will be provided for. It cannot be expected that New Zealanders will submit to be driven from the land of their birth by the same monopoly that has blightedsome of the dearest and brightest spots in the Old World. New Zealand has not been wise in its time.; and it is only now—when the necessity for increasing our rural population has been forced upon us, and eyes are cast around with the object of finding the indispensable soil —that we are face to face with the unpalatable fact that there is, in this island, little or none of that commodity available for the purpose, except in remote places. This is the difficulty that will have to be met in connection with the labor settlements that the Government proposed to establish. It was suggested that land should be repurchased by the State for the purpose. Are the owners of large estates to get their own extortionate prices, or are the Government to take the bull by the horns and insist that where land is really required it shall be taken at its fair value ? We believe that this will yet be made an election cry, and that the people will fyet compel the Legislature to take possession of such estates as the Cheviot on the demise of the owners, on terms that will fully recognise the greatest good to the greatest number, and that will, at the same time, inflict no real hardship on surviving relations. It is a significant fact that the feeling that the land must be administered for the benefit of this district, and that, so strong is the antipathy against the present Government in consequence of the antisettlement conduct of the Minister of Lands, that Mr Hislop’s claims on the Oamaru constituency were severely questioned by the majority of the country settlers of this part of the colony."