The Dominion. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1908. "LEASEHOLD" FALLACIES.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 118, 11 February 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1908. "LEASEHOLD" FALLACIES.

Tiieue is much rejoicing :in some quarters Over what is described as the overwhelming vindication of , the " leasehold " principle in ! connection wi&i the cutting-up of the ' Otekaike Estate—the " brillianttriumph ", of the Minister,.for Lands and his new tenure/ The; N public is presented ,with the fact that if Or the 49 Otekaike' sections, offered on the 'tenures of last year's Land Act, there were about 700 applicants, and is asked to believe that this hungry 1 demand for leasehold sections disposes utterly of the contention that wisdom lies in permitting Crown' tenants to' acquire the 'freehold of their selections! ' When a critic talks' of a

" brilliant triumph " for. this, renewable lease jhe ought'to moan that the renewable I lease has been proved the form of Crown land- tenure most beneficial to' the country. In the present case no attempt whatever is made. 1 to prove any such thing. The " brilliant triumph," on examinationturns out to be, nothing more than the obvious enough truth" that a starving man will be glad to get dry bread if he- cannot get something/better.' The reasoning through which the leasehold " triumph " .is proved 'from the Otekaike statistics is transparently uricandid. It has 'merely proved . that the. land hunger is so acute that men are; glad to get upon the' land on almost any. terms.. , Certainly : it/, cannot,, by any stretch of language, be held" to demonstrate a : t all respecting the national wisdom of the leasehold or any other tenure. It is simply a fact almost irrelevant to: the. real is'v.' f."-" ;; V ; .v, '■. •

the freehold does not rest upon the contention that the withholding 1 of the freehold will ';, prevent ' all settlement. Its foundations are' far 'deeper and broader, but'we have'ho'intention, of going into 1 'them again jltst now, since the piiblic' is thoroughly, familiar with the debilitating influence of,a sys- ; tem of Crown vassalage arid the injury, economic and social, that must folltjw the starvingr'of the .deepest-rooted in-, i stinct of the'true!agricuiturist; In the Case of the Otekaike Estate, the applicants were people- who possessed this instinct, but whose needs were so. great that .theyV could f not afford to remain land-htingry by 1 waiting until that .in-stinct-i$ recognised and provided for. H;ilf a loaf was to them infinitely better than 'no breads To quote them, therefore, as proof of the greater love' of mankind 1 for a half-loaf than for' a

whole one—ox 1 , to drop the metaphor, as prpof that settlers prefer the leasehold to the freehold—is ail assault upon logic tliaticarries its refutation with its statement.'' • To go further, and claim the 700 applicants! for the 49 sections as a ''brilliant triumph" for the new tenure, is a feat .of baselesG assumption almost; without parallel in all the. land- tenure controversy. .' , Those : who, like' ourselves, : believe that the leasehold tenure is admirable as d first step to the freehold, but that the prospect of a limited area'of freehold should be .placed . before evpry settler . upon ■ Crown land, welcome every'accession'to the army of Crown lessees as a recruit for the freehold, movement. Although the Socialists/ contrived last session to rob the tenant ofhis chance of'obtaining the freehold, the/ check is a temporary one, and we are. convinced that, the bulk, or the Crown lessees still believe that the freehold party is not done with yet. "We have shown the fallacy of the contention that the rush for the Otekaike sections means anything other than that the land hunger is still very keen. That point requires no further demon-stration,-but just by way of testing the ingenuity'of the leasehold advocates,* we would put to them one' question. If,

when the Plunket settlement was 'offered last year, there was an average of 70. applicants-for each section, how does it come about that it is a glorious triumph 1 , for the leasehold tenure that the average number of applicants for each Otekaike section was 18 ?