522 ; Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
becoming acquainted with the Indian Archipelago, he also became acquainted 
with the Chinese land law. Quit rent and tenant right is, I believe, the land 
law of China. Mr. Wallace was doubtless also aware that the land of India 
is held under a State proprietary. I think both Mr. George and Mr. Wallace 
should have given us these precedents. They have not doneso. Were they 
afraid to quote precedents for their own argument ? 
Looking then to the continents from out of which our ancestors migrated, 
we find that China, India, portions of Turkey, and Egypt are countries 
wherein the land is nationalized, and in all these countries the people are a 
degraded people. In the face of the communal system, the north-western 
nations of Europe individualized their land, although it does not appear 
clear that they intended the law of gavelkind as any check against the 
accumulation of large estates. I advocate it now as a check to accumulation, 
as I do not wish to see the peoples of the Anglo-Saxon race become such 
degraded beings as the Indians, Chinese, or the Egyptian fellahs. I take it 
that perpetual leasehold property will sap and undermine the strength and 
independence of any nation, as it is impossible for a man to prove himself 
so free and independent a citizen under the leasehold as under the freehold 
title. 
It will be observed that the nationalization of land has not, in times 
past, prevented the accumulation of land, nor has it divided the land 
according to the population. Thus, if New Zealand were divided into 640- 
acre blocks, or 820-acre blocks, to-morrow, and each given to one man, we 
could not, by legislative enactment, get back any of this land for the 
purpose of settling upon it a future excess of population. We might pass 
laws to take it away, but those laws would be inoperative. On the other 
hand, we cannot be sure that, under the perpetual leasing system, land will 
not accumulate ; for it may so happen that, nothwithstanding any act we 
may pass now against accumulation, yet, nevertheless, these two islands 
may become separate governments, or foreign war may arise, and then 
prominent and worthy citizens may be given large areas, or acquire them 
in other ways. 
Is it not therefore preferable to place the subdivision of the land apart 
from the State, and apart from the people? To place the question upon 
the imperishable basis of a great custom, used for many centuries by the 
most independent nations of the globe, and still used and tenaciously clung 
to by the people of France: a custom whereby the area of the land becomes 
subdivided exactly in proportion to the population ! 
To prove this, let us refer to the history of the Roman Empire, and to 
the Agrarian Laws, although I must apologise for troubling you with 
historical events, with which you are all acquainted. Passing over then 
