Historic Places Trust

Press, 11 September 1989, Page 20

Historic Places Trust

Sir,—S. O. Mahony (August 29) believes that a society which protects the rights of individuals to private property should extract a quid pro quo by taking away rights to historic buildings or whatever may be considered part of “our heritage.” This may overlook the benefits society gains from the private ownership of property. Most New Zealanders take the protection of the individual’s property rights for granted. Their importance for land improvement had been explained when I did the enclosure of common land for School Certificate history, but it came home forcefully when I worked on an aid project in Southern Africa. Here land was owned communally. This destroyed the individual tribesman's incentive to look after the land and worse stilt to invest in land improvement. Few tribesmen could be sure that the chief would not reallocate his patch to another family after he had made it flourish. I believe that lack of property rights to land coupled with continual war, which is an extreme form of the absence of property rights, are the two most important causes of poverty and land degradation in these parts. — Yours, etc.,

ALASTAIR MCARTHUR. September 6, 1989.