New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1860-08-25

hear. wolves and cstamounts against the pioneers
of industry and civilization, by holding up the
prce of its lands and selling them TO spectators
instead of sllotting them freely in quarter-secaons
10 actual settlers, now votes against the policy no
once 80 forcibly commended. He does this, not
because his views of the intrinsic justice and
beneficence of the Free Homestead policy have
changed, but because (ike Mr.. Calhoun with
regard to Protectiop) he has discovered that Free
Homesteads and Slavery Extension are deadly
antagonists, and his devotion to Slavery overbears
every adverse consideration.
There were advocates of Free Homes before
there was any Republican party, and would still
have been such advocates had no such party ever
existed but there is no reason to suppose that
in that case there wouli ever have been great
party committed to the Free-Land policy. Old
parties are constitutionaly averse to new
ideas. Only party devoted to the diffusion of
Free Labor could have brought the Old Free
States to hearty unanimity in favor Of Free
Homes TO be carved from the Public Lands. A
selfish, shori-sghted view regards the policy of
Free Homes as at war with the interest of the Old
States, though broader, clearer vision shows the
contrary. The Great West is the predestined
market, not only of the imported Wares and
Fabrics of the seabosrd Cities out of the Iron of
Pennsylvania and New.Jersey, the Manufactures
of New England, the Cotton aud Sugar Of the
South West. The faster the West can be settled
and cultivated, the more independent and thrifty
it's settlers, the greater must be the demand for
the peculiar products and merchandise of the sea-
board States A new STATE in the West implies
new warehouses in and near lower Broadway,
new streets and blocks up town, new furnaces
in PENNSYLVANIA, new factories in New-England.
A new cabin on the prairies predicts and iosures
more work for the carmen and stevedores of New
York. And the difference between being prompt
and liberal customers to our merchants and MAJ
utacturers on the one hand, and needy, scrimpog
purchasers of few of the bare necessares OF life,
will, TO great extent, be determined by the es-
tablishment or defeat of the Free Homestead
policy.
The vital fact which too many of the citizens OF
the Old States are too needless to realize, Is this
Our present Public. Land system compels our
pioneers to pay for their lands many times the
price that the Government exacts and receives Tor
them. Most of the pioneers are quite poor-be.
come pioneers mainly because Of their poverty. The
man who first "squats" on a quarter section of
Public Land, Intending to make it his home, very
seldom has any money left after putting up his
rude cabin, and blowing or breaking few acres
for his first crop. When compelled to pay for his
quarter ection, he has but one resOurce-tO get
some Spectator to bid it off and take the deed,
giving him contract to sell on payment of the
principal with twenty, thirty, forty, and even
fifty per cent. interest. Under TINS contract, he
lives, like toad under harrow, for years, deny
il bis family the comforts of life in order to meet
the heavy interest his article" and very often
overwhelmed by it at last 1t ia very true that
many pioneers are not so industrious so proyi-
dent as they might be- but the fact that the neces
sity of paying for their lands keeps them poor and
harassed for years, is not thereby shaken.
Millions of acres are mOnopolized by means of
land-warrants and otherwise, and held up for five
ten, twenty, and even thirty dollars per acre.
While so held, they are an obstacle, nuisance, a
blight, to the adjacent settlers The Free-HOme.
stead pc icy would strongly discourage this fore
stolng speculation by rendering it Improbable.
The great majority of settlers would refuse to buy
the spectators lands, unless at much reduced
price il the Government prOffered them choice of
its remaining lands for the bare cost of survey and
location.
We sh all have the Free. Homestead policy estab-
lished, because the next Administration will be
Republican, with Congress of Ike faith. To
expect it from any other, is like expecting to boil
a tea kettle with STOW balls. Ten years expert
ence, eliminating in the late Presidential veto, not
of our full measure, bu; of the halfmeasur, con-
cocted by Democrats, ought to suffice. With Lin
coin for President the passage of thorough, con
sistent Free-Land bill, is inevitable. With either
of bis rivals elected we shall have half measure
at best, and more probably none at all AS the
poor of the Northwest must know this we cannot
doubt that Lincoln will carry all those States BY
overwhelming majorites.