The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20. 1927. AN OLD LAND POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 92, 20 April 1927, Page 6

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

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 20. 1927. AN OLD LAND POLICY.

For the causa that lacks assistants, For ths wrong that need* resistance* For the future in the distance. And the good that tc* can do.

Anyone who takes tlie trouble to follow in detail the new land policy adopted by the Labour Party's Conference at Xapier voterday will find that it has a strangely familiar rin;,'. I onservation of all State and publiclyowned lands, protection of owner's interests, compensation for improvnieuts, graduated tax, compulsory acquisition of lands for settlement, perpetual lease. State transfer facilities— where have we >een all these things before? By tlie time he has got to the end of the list, everybody who knows anything about this country s past political history must realise that the new Labour policy is simply the old Liberal land policy under a very thin disguise, and that by strange and devious ways the Labour leaders of to-day have at last got backto the point at which Richard Seddon and the great Liberals of the past stood thirty-five years ago.

We must, of course, make allowance for the preamble to the now policy—''public ownership of land"—which is of necessity introduced as a concession to Labour demand for the socialisation of all sources of wealth. But with this distinctive feature the new Labour policy is simply made up of the Liberal land laws of the "nineties" resurrected without acknowledgment of identity. No doubt the compliment thus paid to Mr. Seddon and the distinguished democrats associated with him is sincere. But under the circumstances it is hard to understand why Labour insists on dissociating itself from Liberalism, and why so many members of the Labour party to-day repudiate so ungratefully the debt that they owe to the Liberal statesmen of the past.

We need hardly at this late hour embark upon an endless controversy as to the relative merits of the rival forms of land tenure. In our opinion the leasehold system has always been well fitted to the needs of the Dominion. The Crown as owner of the land under such a system secures the immense benefit of the automatic rise in land values, due chiefly to public expenditure on roads and railways. The dangers of the freehold to small farmers without much working capital have been most painfully exemplified throughout the country during the recent "slump." The fact that many people "on the land" prefer the freehold to the leasehold is wholly irrelevant, if it can be shown that leasehold tenure is better adapted to their needs and is permanently conducive to the country's welfare. In any case, there never was the slightest difficulty about finding occupants for land under the leasehold system; indeed, the trouble always was to find an adequate supply of land. Moreover, wc have the testimony of the present Minister of Lands as proof that leasehold tenure is still popular to-day. Everything that can be said in favour of the leasehold system was said thirty-five years ago by Mr. Scddon and Sir John McKenzic much better than anyone is likely to say it now. But why should Labour now produce this old and welltried Liberal system as its own, and endeavour to foist it on the country without the faintest acknowledgment of its source and origin?