LAND FOR THE PEOPLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 290, 8 December 1932, Page 6

LAND FOR THE PEOPLE.

A great deal has been said and written in recent months of the Douglas social credit system, and its advocates claim that herein lies the solution of the present financial impasse. It will 'be admitted by most thinking men that the solution of our economic problem to-day lies, in the control of ' land values. About twenty years ago the Reform party took office in this country, and with the cry of "Freehold of the. land. is-' freedom for the people," the leasehold system ofland tenure inaugurated by Sir George Grey and carried on during the Liberal regime of the following years was ruthlessly slaughtered. For two decades the freeholders have carried on until to-day we have the harrowing.spectacle of farmers struggling to keep other (retired) farmers, whose only contribution to national prosperity has been the creation of vast mortgage values, and we find the banks suggesting that the general (city) taxpayer should come to the aid. of the farmer. It seems to me that here the freehold system, fails. If the land belonged to the peopte it would be an easy matter in times of depression to adjust rental values, but it is, I suggest, about as reasonable to propose that every business man in the city who by reason of the depression has failed should be assisted from the Consolidated Fund as it is to sug' gest that the farmer who occupies land owned largely by the banks should" receive assistance to pay his way. Your journal has for many years championed the* cause of the land for the people, and it seems to me that the time is now ripe for the launching of a scheme of, leasehold tenure, or the land for the people. Speaking on this matter in Wellington on August 16, 1879, Sir George Grey said: "What created capital was earth, the land, and human labour applied to it. The only source of capital was the earth and the men who made it productive." M. K. ALEXANDER.