The Press. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1906. THE LAND POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12591, 6 September 1906, Page 6

The Press. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1906. THE LAND POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Tho Hon. Mr McNab, by his speech in which he set forth the land policy of tho Government on Tuesday night, certainly showed that he is a decided acquisition to the Cabinet in the matter of debating power, and Sir Joseph Ward, while listening to him, must have felt, his judgment in selecting the hon. member for Mataura to replace the Hon. Mr Duncan as Minister for Lands, was confirmed. The Government are also fairly entitled to credit for having taken the earliest opportunity of bringing down their policy on the land question instead of shirking and evading this troublesome problem after the fashion of their immediate predecessors. Having said this, however, wo cannot but regret that their policy, as expounded, waa not more worthy of tho occasion. It is, in fact, bo unsound, so opposed to the best interests of tho colony that we cannot but believe the country will rise up in revolt against it. Mr McNab found

himself in a very difficult position. Ho is himself, as ho frankly told the House, the owner of some 1300 or 1400 acres of freehold land. In his speech to his constituents before the election, he frankly avowed himself a -supporter of tho Opposition policy of giving tho Land for Settlement leesoo the option of acquiring tho freehold. Yet he had to stand np on Tuesday might, as the exponent of a policy which, if it means anything, means that the freeholder is an enemy of the human race, that so far as the Government are concerned ho must not. acquire any more land but he must look forward to having taken from him even that which he hatTi. That, wo say, is tho whole tendency of the Government policy as now unfolded. It either means that, or it means nothing at all.

In the matter of details, Mr McNab shows that already the Government have profited by Opposition criticism and have altered some of their original proposals. For instance, according to the outline in the Financial Statement, tho new GG years' leases were at tho end of the term to bo offered again for lease, burdened with the value of improvements to be paid by the incoming to tho outgoing tenant. It is now stated that there will be a revaluation and the existing tenant will bo offered a renewal at tho rent then fixed. Mr McNab also indicated, if lie did not state so explicitly, that the £50,000 limit is oiofc to applyto town sections. But tho crux of the (Govern mont proposals stilH remains. They proclaim to all the world by their policy that if they get their way New Zealand shall be a country of leaseholders, and tho freeholder shall, in every way, be repressed. No more Crown lands are to be disposed of in fee simple. The ridiculous suggestion in the Financial Statement that the owner of a lease for 999 years might get the freehold if he chose to surrender his lease with all its goodwill and take his chance of buying it back in open competition, is so preposterous that even Mr McNab did not think it worth whilo to refer to it in his speech. If a man owns a thousand acres of firet-claes land, he must not add to his holding. If the Government valuers assess his land at more than £50,000 unimproved value, he must sell tho surplus within ten years whether there is any demand far land or not. For ourselves we do not object to a reasonable provision to prevent there-aggregation of large estates, but this should apply to tho future, and should not bo made retrospective as tho Government propose. It is one thing to say that if a man already has a thousand or fifteen hundred acres of freehold he shall not be allowed to purchase any more, but it is another thing io enact that if he already has a holding above a certain size he shall sell a portion of it within a certain limited period whether there happen to be any buyers or not. It is the more gratuitous and indefensible to introduce a provision of this kind, because tho Government already have the power to buy and subdivide any property if they wish to do so, or they can, by means of tho graduated land tax, make it unprofitable to hold large estates. We object to this provision for the 6ame reason that we object to the land policy of the Government as a whole, namely, that it shows something very like animus, if not express malice, against tho freeholder. Mr Fowlds, with his Henry Goorgeism, seems to have hypnotised the entire Caibinet. Mr McNab is a mere political Trilby, and sings the songs which Mr Fowlds as Svcngali instils into his mind. The policy of the Opposition in regard to the land is to encourage a man to acquire the freehold, so as to fiee him from interference, and give him every encouragement to cultivate his land to the best advantage. If it should increase in value, they think that the man who lives om the land and cultivates it ought to receive the increase, in the same way that the owner of stocks or shares, or any other species of property, benefits by a rise in value. The Government look upon the independent freeholder with distrust, if not with positive aversion. They will not allow even the natives to dispose of tho fee simple of their surplus lands. Their ideal ia that the settlers of New Zealand should become tenants either of the State or of a Maori landlord, and by periodical re-valuation of tho lease they intend to secure that the landlord awS not the tenant shall reap the benefit of any rise in value. Feeling that tho hunger for the freehold is so strong that they cannot withstand it altogether, they have conceived tho brilliant idea of making tho

large freeholder carve off portions of his

property in order to feed tho smaller men. At tho present time they allow him to keep a fairly large slice for himself, but can anyone doubt that if the principle is once established, the limit will not afterwards b? reduced, and that in process of time the Fowldsites will get their way, and tho freehold tenure in New Zealand will be extinguished altogether? Can even tho 999 years leaseholder feel safe, seeing that he too commits the unpardonable sin of receiving the increment in value instead of handing it over to the State? He is now offered an option, which it is certain he will not accept, namely, that of converting his title into a 6G years' leape; is it not very probable that in the future, unless wo make a stand against the present Socialistic movement, conversion will bo forced upon him, whether he likes it or not? We hop 3 tho Government proposals will be rejected. If they are adopted, tho time is not far distant when not only will fresh population cease to come to these shores, but young New Zealanders will emigrate to other lands to obtain that for which their fathers left the Mother Country—a freehold of their own.