SOLDIERS AND THE LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 89, 14 April 1917, Page 13

SOLDIERS AND THE LAND.

THE LLOYD GEORGE OF ANCIENT ROME. The first ruler of a great empire who legislated to settle ex-soldiers on the land was Gracchus, who was a kind of Lloyd George of ancient Rome, save a writer in the "Daily Chronicle." The r .trician landowners complained that it was hard to give up estates, many ot ', which had been purchased by them or received as the dowry o f their wives. But Gracchus said that this was not so hard as that men who had fought for their country should not have the means of subsistence. A share of the land, he declared, was the soldier's right, and the owners who withheld it •were robbing them. And Gracchus did more than insist upon ex-soldiers having access to the land. He furnished tnem with capital, because, as he said, it was little nee making grante of land without the means of cultivating it. The capital was raised by a very fortunate windfall left by Attalus, King ot Pergamos, v.-ho, having died without heirs, left his rich kingdom with vast treasures as an inheritance to the Roman people. Graacnue, displaying the wisdom of a great Chancellor of the Exchequer, passed a law to the effect that these vast treasures.should be used in the purchase of agricultural machinery. The dispossessed landowners were compensated to the extent of the value of their buildings, but not for the land, which was held by β-ncient law to be State property.