MR WITTY IN EXPLANATION.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 11916, 10 June 1904, Page 4

MR WITTY IN EXPLANATION.

In his address to his constituents at Addington last night Mr Witty referred to our criticisms on the attitude he took up regarding the land tenure question in his Papanui speech. We have no wish to do the member for Riccarton an injustice, and we admit freely that so far aa concerns the suggestion that Crown tenants should ba allowed to pay a certain amount off their holdings and thus reduce their rent* the money received being earmarked for the purchase of land for settlement, his present views are the same as those which he expressed in hat election campaign. But we still fail to see how he can reconcile this proposal, the effect of which would be to keep the tenant still tied to the State, subject to all: the regulations under which Crown tenants work, with his emphatically expressed belief in th© frcehola as the best form of temne. Ho errs we cannot alt. bo freeholders, but he would deny the privilege to a large number who would gladly avail themselves of it, if they were permitted to do so. It is useless for Mr Witty to assert that' be is as keen for the freehold to-day as ever he was, and almost in tbe same breath refuse to let the less«-ra-perpetuHy secure it. If he means to vote with the Government against the freeholders; let him say so, ond let us then hear a, little less from him about the advantage of tho freehold tenure. It will be noticed that he repeated last night, with the remark that he was not ashamed to do so, his assertion that it is a want of pluck that makes men fake up land on the "perpetual lease," by which, presumably, ho means the lease-in-perpctuity. The two forms of tenure, by the way, ore not identical, as be seems to think. For our part we repeat that it is on utterly unjustifiable statement, reflecting on" a largo body of settkrs, who have good caute to resent it- Tlie same charge of cowardice might as well have been laid against Mr Witty because he did not buy bis own laud right out, but paid for it gradually. His remark about the question

put to him by our reporter is hardly ingenuous. Our representative did not ask him whether be would grant the freehold to Crown tenants who were willing to pay. the present value of the land, but whether he had said he would do so, being somewhat in the dark, as were others among Mr Witty's audience, as to what he really did mean. We have admitted Mr Witty's consistency in one respect. But that same circular, to which he referred Inst night as proof that his views of two years ago had not changed, contained also the following brief sentence: "I would oppose re-valuation.'.' Last night he said there was too much of the speculative element in the fcose-in-perpetuity system, "and that "showed the folly of having no re-vahn- " tion scheme." Is this consistency?