Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 171, 14 April 1891 — ONE MAN, ONE VOTE. [ARTICLE]

ONE MAN, ONE VOTE.

One of the efTects of*the propcrty qualjfieatiGn vote was to tsecur<z enactnients whieh would. enable niembers of the legislature a!id their friendg to get posseseion of enon.iouā pioperties from Ihe public Jands. The wholē history ofour land legislat|on has been to make it easy f®r the land hokl-

■ ings of the- native people to pass into the hands of syndicates» an(J specu!ators, or those who alr ready were yrealt|iy »nd influenr tial land ©wners; and it is beyor»d denial thafc by this moana not only the present generation is impoverished, but the rising generation is deprived, we eouki say swindled, bv legal process, out of their birthright. | The British government fchrew a cordon of protection arouncl the natives of New Zealand by ref serving to thetn tracts of land heid on the tribal whieh the natives cannot seil or niortgage, But scarcely ]iad the mk been dry on the parchment by whieh Kamehameha the XII partitioned the land to his peof ple. than some pious mortgagor was ready with his Wank and bait to liook in the kuleana. So the robbery —iegal of coursc—has gone naerrily on, untill the mlventurous carpet-bagger has secured the na f ivcs' land and as a consequence of his landless eou<lition, the native himself is largely hekl in mortg;ige as.a chattlesiave- by the said smart carpet| bagger.

" Because tho good o!d rule Snfficeth them, tho aimple plan, That they. should take who have the power, I A nd they should keep who ean." i In the matter of transfer of property, things are changed more in appearance than reality since the days of Rob Roy. The "power" af the freebooter in the legislature has more ofthe sernh}ance than the reality of honestyf aud where he ean club together to get a water right north $50,000 a year for a hundred dollars a vear, or a valuable Crown land lease, or any of the huFidred nnd one othcr meame by whieh the political freebooter robs that vague personage known as the publlc, he d©es so with fhe white 01 his pious eyes turned up to heaven. i But to the lands that are n©w left—whether governnient or Crowa lands.—every citizen has an equal share, and that right alone requires that every man should have an equal vote as to how they should be disposed of. To that property entitles a to piural voting is to eontend that manbood is a less qualification than weaith.

Let us start a hereditary nobility at onee, if we are to submit to this incorporation of thc dregs of feu(falism to reinain iri our ' 4 Reform" Constitution. One vote for a serf—Two for a Duke." How does that eeho ? Not well, but I;hen its there all the same, and it has got to be changed to u One maoj, one vote^'