The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1907. THE LAND PROPOSALS

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 169, 17 July 1907, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1907. THE LAND PROPOSALS

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, .Ftr the future i% the distance. And the good th»t tee can do.

All doubt as to the intentions of Government regarding the land has now been set at restr and we may preface our remarks on the subject by congratulating Sir Joseph Ward upon the scheme that he has now laid before Parliament. The main purpose of the original Land Bill was twofold—to promote the settlement of our lands, and to prevent the aggregation of large areas in a few hands. The proposal to limit the size of large estates was generally well received by the Hous,e and the country. But a fiertee controversy has raged round the question of freehold v. leasehold tenure as applied to Crown lands. Our own conviction has always been that to prevent the acquisition of the freehold would be to block settlement an all those lands which settlers require special inducements to take uj> —in other words, on most of the Crown lande left unsettled in the North Island, and more especially in Auckland. For this "reason we strenuously opposed the exclusion of the optional system from Mr. McKab's first bill, and we believe that in this particular we gauged the general feeling of the country.more accurately than the. Minister for Lands. We may be excused this apparent egoism, because Mr. McNab has now, on this point, come round to our way of thinking. The optional tenure is to be applied in future to all Crown lands except those reserved for special public purposes or taken, up under the ' Lands for Settlement Act. Accordingly what was in our opinion the chief objection to the bill disappears, and we are glad to be able to express our emphatic approval of the line of policy that Government has aow decided to follow.

The debates upon the new Land Bill in its various forms will give us plenty of opportunity to discuss its clauses in detail. All that we need do now is to refer to the chief features of the proposals set forth by .Sir Joseph Ward. Government intends to set aside some 9,000,000 acres of the Crown lands now unsold, as a national endowment for educati&nal and other public purposes. The- P-remie-r quoted figures: Showing the distribution of these proposed reserves: and we may remark tfiat : 000,000 acres are located in Auckland district. It is as well to bear in mind that a great deal of this land, more especially the 4,000,000 acros situated in Otagd" aid Canterbury, is broken country, so rough as to be largely unfit for settlement. As to Auckland, our previous experience with public endowments does not encourage us to hope for much return from even 900,000 acres, until settlement has progressed far beyond the point it has now reached here. But the new Land Bill is to provide inducements for settlement tnat will certainly raise the value of our public reserves much more rapidly than could have been expected if Mr. llcNab's original proposals had come into force. For the Premier

has stated that all Crown lands left after the endowment reservations have been made will be open on the optional system, leasehold tenure running for 65 years with revaluation. Here we have the chance of securing the freehold held out to all would-be settlers, and this fact will necessarily make an immense difference to the prospects of the coming Land Bill, as well as to the prosperity of the country when once the new policy is in working order. As to the present lessees of Crown lands who desire to obtain the freehold, they are to be allowed to secure the fee simple of their land at a price fixed by arbitration ajid based on current, values. This is a very different matter from competing at public auction, possibly against wealthy rivals anxious to secure the benefit of the- original tenant's improvements ; and the change will certainly be welcomed by a large number of Mr. MeNab's critics, who have made the demand for the option their watchword and rallying cry. So far, then, the new proposals differ from Mr. McNab's original bill chiefly in this respect: that they offer the option of the freehold to present Crown leaseholders and also to future selectors of Crown lands after the endowment reservations have been set aside. Bnt there was another expedient suggested by Mr. McNab that was intended to bring a large amount of freehold land into the market, and here we find that a change has also been made. The limitation proposals, which would have compelled everyone holding more than £50,000 worth of land to put his surplus on the market within ten years, have been thrown aside; and in their place we find an increase in the graduated land tax. The purpose of the limitation scheme was to discourage the accumulation of huge blocks of land in private hands j arid on no other question is Government so certain of public sympathy and

support. One of the most remarkable proofs of the transformation through which public feeling in this country has passed under the influence 1 of Liberalism is the unanimity with which these "bursting up" proposals have been approved even by 'members, of the Opposition and by laudholders who objected to- the refusal of

the freehold. Any scheme intended to supersede the limitation proposals should be equally effective in preventing the aggregation of large estates if it is to secure the ends that Ministers and the great Liberal majority behind them have in view. It requires very careful consideration whether the graduated land tax, outlined by Sir Joseph Ward, j will have that effect. But, generally speakI ing , , the measures foreshadowed by Sir Joseph Ward are a great improvement on tie Land Bill originally introduced, by Mr. McKab. We cannot expect them to satisfy extremists like Mr. Laurenson and Mr. Ell. But we believe that, if sufficient -provision is made to prevent effectually the building up of huge estates, the new Land policy will do infinitely more than anything j-et attempted on these lines to encourage settlement, to open up the back blocks, to secure to .the settlers the fruits of their labour, and thus to promote the progress and prosperity of our country and

its people,