'SHEER DYNAMITE'

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 197, 20 August 1943, Page 2

'SHEER DYNAMITE'

DISAPPOINTING BILL OPPOSITION CRITICISM (By Telegraph—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. "To the Government's amazement, iC has discovered that the country cannot be fooled all She time. A time-bomb has landed on its table, and I am certain it is going to explode on September 25th," said Mr. Doidge (National, Tauranga), speaking on the second reading debate on the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday. Mr. Doidge said there was a duty to attract returned men to the land but there was nothing in the bill to indicate that any particular effort had been made in that direction. The bill had been awaited for four years, and the result throughout the country was one of disappointment and distrust. Away To Bad Start" The bill got off to a bad start, he said, when the Minister of Lands, Mr. Barclay, made such a sorry attempt to explain it. The bill was sheer dynamite, and it was clear that the Minister did not know political dynamite when he saw it. Surely it should be possible to devise a simple method of preventing inflated values? Farms might be sold with a proviso that the purchasers were acquiring them only for farming. Buyers of houses should be people who were definitely going to live in them, and not merely persons buying for speculation. Anyone buying a farm or a home in that way would not buy at more than the productive value. However, when there was a new Government after September 25, within three or four months machinery would be in operation to achieve the purpose simply by placing men on farms at productive value and giving them the freehold. Mr. Williams (Government, Kaiapoi) said that the postponement of the bill would mean the postponement of the rehabilitation of servicemen. As far as the time limit on the operation of the measure was concerned, he thought it was wise that they should not be tied up too definitely to any monetary values. "I believe," he added, "that we can carry stabilisation too far, and that if we are too closely attached to a doctrinaire stabilisation policy we might find ourselves in the same difficultv the world was in after the last war when an attempt was made to restore the value of the English pound and base it on gold." Fair Play For All Aimed At It had been said that the National party was fighting for the land holders, but that was not true, said Mr. Cobbe (National, Manawatu). The National party was fighting for fair play to all — for the landholders, farmers and returned soldiers. Mrs. Dreaver (Government, Waitemata) quoted instances of rising property values. One was that of a man who bought 12 flats in Wellington for £16,500 and sold them for £26 200 and then regretted it as he could have got £30,000 for them. "We are going to stop that kind of thing" she said.