GAMBLING IN LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 250, 21 October 1919, Page 10

GAMBLING IN LAND.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Your report in a recent "Star" on this subject serves to show how narrow are our views on this ques tion. It may be true that high prices sen-p to break up large estates, t>ut usually the eeller promptly secures i' another large estate, to 'be subsequently likewise broken up, greatly to his own . advantage. There is no prospect that we will ever i eolve the land problem until we drop our slavish allegiance to custom, and face the question with courage and i common sense. Let us first grip the .! idea that to hold land without utilising i it in immoral, then let us make it illegal. , Where no attempt is made to uee land i within three years of purchase it should , revert to the State. Thie would settle J those gentlemen who are land greedy. . Fully half the farms, at least in this . province, are larger than their owners • jean work: there ie a speculative value ,in the holding. We should let every man i. have all the land he can properly use, :' - and no more. I Ordinary land speculation could tie i j stopped even more simply. Let there be < a Government office in which every land : transaction must be recorded, with particulars fully scheduled, including price paid and duration of holding. \Vhfire.a resale takes place within a year let the Government take the whole of the profits; for the second year, say, 80 per cent, and bo on. There would be no need. at present, to trouble about land held more than five years. Surely every sane man must realise that land sales, unless they produce settlers, retard production, and New Zealand to-day cannot afford to harbour an enemy who does that. It will require courage to face this question for any attempt at real reform is bound to raise opposition, and the land gambler has the support of cuatoia and financial interests. Yet he is the cruellest and most vicious profiteer in New Zealand to-day, and liis presence is a menace to our country. Every candidate for Parliament should be required to express very definite viewe on the land problem.—l am, etc., A.