188 



KNOWLEDGE. 



- [August, 1903. 



The Agrarian Struggle. 



In mauy countries the tenure of laud lias beeu the 

 theatre of a conflict. It would be interesting to follow, 

 for examjile, the vicissitudes of the luttle in France diu-ing 

 the uiuctccuth century lietweeu iiii'tayntjf ;inj ftrinaije, or 

 of that other battle Ijetweeu large estates and peasant pro- 

 perties ; but either topic would lead us too far afield. A 

 more manageable subject, of more pressing interest and 

 susceptibile of exact statement, invites attention. 



By the right of eminent domain, by purchase or con- 

 fiscation, the Government of a new colony acquires the 

 fee-simple of whole territories. How shall it dispose of 

 them to eager settlers ? It sells them to those rich enough 

 to buy, but many eligible farmers lack suificient means. 

 Then springs up in rapid succession a variety of tenures 

 whose primary object is to facilitate settlement. Tliat the 

 struggle for existence among sociological species arises 

 from the same cause as the struggle among biological 

 species — the number of forms competing in the same area 

 — appears from the fact that, if New South Wales has 

 flowered into sixteen varieties of land tenure. New Zealand 

 luxuriates in nineteen. The experimentation took on a 

 new character after the advent of Henry George. From 

 that moment the disposition was to retain the ownership 

 in the hands of the State, lightly burdening the tenant 

 with a quit rent. The perpetual lease was the first new 

 tenure. Perpetuity might seem to promise as great a 

 duration as a farmer could wish, but the New Zealand 

 land reformer (the Highland shepherd boy who lately died 

 Sir John Mackenzie) stole a march on time and invented 

 the eternal — which its opponents nicknamed the infernal 

 — lease, or lease in perpetuity. The new school holds that 

 the Cosmos is finite, and an eternal lease lasts for only 999 

 years. Thus, granting fixity of tenure, and carrying with 

 it the power of sale, sublease, mortgage, or disposition by 

 will, it is practically equal to freehold. On the other hand, 

 a low rental of 4 per cent, on the assessed capital value 

 retains the property for the benefit of the State, while a 

 land tax secures for it the " unearned increment." A 

 tenui'e with all these advantages would seem destined to 

 ]>revail. Other tenures are accordingly being abandoned 

 in favour of the lease-in-perpetuity. Thus, to take a 

 single instance, in the province of Otago perpetual leases 

 decreased in 1900-01 from 301 to 286, and the area held 

 from 58,538 acres to 55,510 acres. The reduction arose 

 from conversion into leases-iu-perpetuity or into freehold. 

 For settlers are manifesting an immistakable bias in 

 favour of individual ownership. So recently as September 

 last a motion was made in the House of Representatives 

 authorizing the conversion of leases-in-perpetuity into free- 

 holds. The Minister of Lands strenuously resisted the 

 proposal ; but the movement shows the tendency of this 

 brand-new tenure to lapse, like the older forms, into free- 

 hold. Other evidence is to the same effect. During the 

 year named 195 holders of the old perpetual leases con- 

 verted their leaseholds into freehold ; aud the provincial 

 Commissioners testify to the growing popularity of the 

 optional lease systems. Thus, in Taranaki, the oecupation- 

 with-right-of-purchase tenure assumes the lead against 

 lease-in-per|ietuity by 39 selectors. It is safe to predict 

 that, within a measurable space of time, all tenures will 

 have disappeared, and freehold will reign alone. 



Such are the relations among sociological sjjeeies which 

 the property of language, or the dominance of a particular 

 mode of thought, obliges us to name by terms softened 

 from those descriptive of a bodily encounter. But there is 

 no actual struggle among such species, any more than there 

 are mortal wounds or rivers of blood. Endogamy may be 

 said to die at the hands of exogamy, and State-tenure at 



the hands of freehold, but only l>y a questionable extension 

 of a convenient metaplmr. Mr. Spencer's felicitous phrase, 

 which even the univcrsul learningof l^r. (.Jarii<-tt attriliutes 

 to Darwin, more truly describes the result, without always 

 satisfactorily describing the process. It is, indeed, the 

 fittest that survive, l)ut the laws of adaptation remain to 

 be generalized. The world is not a battlefield. Some great 

 new thinker will supply us with a new nonifuclature, or will 

 strip our present terminology of mislcailiiig assnriations. 



Conducted hy M. I. Cross. 



POND-LIFE COLLECTING FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 



II. — Apparatus kor Microscopic Examination. 



By Charles F. Rousselet, f.r.,m.s. 



Ha\ ING shown in a previous article how to collect the various 

 Pond organisms, I will now discuss those methods of bringing 

 them under the microscope which I have found both practical 

 and expeditious. 



Fig. 3 is a ])hotogra])h of various apparatus used for this 

 purpose, consisting of troughs, pipettes, live box and compressor. 



After capturing a miscellaneous collection of Pond-life and 

 transferring it to a window aquarium, placed in front of a 

 window, as previously ex[)lained, it will be desirable first of all 

 to place some of it under a low power of the microscope, say a 

 2 inch or 1 J inch objective, in order to obtain a better general 

 view of the various animals. The free-swimming forms will 

 mostly have collected on the light side of the aquarium, and can 

 there be picked up quite clean, and in vast numbers sometimes 



Fig. 3. — Micro. Troughs, Pipettes, Live-box, and Compressor, 

 for Pond-life work. 



with the i)ii)ette (e) and transferred to a square trough (a) or (6), 

 and placed under the microscope, where the contents can readily 

 be illuminated from below, both with transmitted light and 

 under dark ground. I prefer to use dark-ground illumination 

 with low powers when searching over the contents of a trough, 

 and when studying the shape, mode of swimming, ways of 

 feeding and living of Polyzoa, Rotifera and Infusoria. More- 

 over, the animals scattered through the trough will soon collect 

 in the spot of light of the condenser, and then the whole field 

 of view will often be a mass of moving, dancing, tumbling, 

 sparkling life. 



The trough (a), 3 inch by li inch and -^ inch thick, is the form 

 I mostly use ; it stands upright on the table, is reversible and can 

 be handled without greasing the well part of the glass. The 



