that any person acquiring land should himself live thereon, and should use and improve it, and not leave it lying idle until the spread of population enabled him to sell it at a profit to some monopolist or, more often, some genuine farmer.  As early as 1856 Otago had set the example of insisting on an outlay of 30s. an acre in improvement by each purchaser of public land.  Gradually the limiting laws were made more and more stringent, and were partly applied even to pastoral leases.  Now, in 1898, no person can select more than 640 acres of first-class or 2,000 acres of second-class land, including any land he is already holding.  In other words, no considerable landowner can legally acquire public land.  Pastoral “runs”—­i.e., grazing leases—­must not be larger than such as will carry 20,000 sheep or 4,000 cattle, and no one can hold more than one run.  The attempts often ingeniously made to evade these restrictions by getting land in the names of relatives, servants, or agents are called “dummyism,” and may be punished by imprisonment—­never inflicted—­by fines, and by forfeiture of the land “dummied."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Many a good story is founded on the adventures of land-buyers in their endeavours to evade the spirit and obey the letter of land regulations.  In 1891 a rhymester wrote in doggerel somewhat as follows of the experiences of a selector who “took up” a piece of Crown land—­

  “On a certain sort of tenure, which his fancy much preferred,
   That convenient kind of payment which is known as the ‘deferred.’

  “Now the laws in wise New Zealand with regard to buying land,
   Which at divers times and places have been variously planned,
   Form a code that’s something fearful, something wonderful and grand.

  “You may get a thousand acres, and you haven’t got to pay
   Aught but just a small deposit in a friendly sort of way.

  “But you mustn’t own a freehold, and you mustn’t have a run,
   And you mustn’t be a kinsman of a squatter owning one;

  “But must build a habitation and contentedly reside,
   And must satisfy the Land Board that you pass the night inside.

  “For if any rash selector on his section isn’t found
   He is straightway doomed to forfeit all his title to the ground.”]

The political battles over the land laws of New Zealand during the sixteen years since 1882 have not, however, centred round the limitation of the right of purchase, or insistence on improvements, so much as round the respective advantages of freehold and perpetual leasehold, and round the compulsory repurchase of private land for settlement.  Roughly speaking, the political party which has taken the name of Liberal has urged on the adoption of the perpetual lease as the main or sole tenure under which State lands should in the future be acquired.  As a rule the party which the Liberals call Conservative has advocated that would-be settlers should be allowed to choose their