LAND NATIONALISATION

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 280, 7 August 1909, Page 13

LAND NATIONALISATION

(Br Jahes Ashchoft.)

SOME FALLACIES ABOUT LAND AND LAND NATIONALISATION. ; I.

I am not, and never havo been, a largelandowner. Years ago I fought as a 'journalist, and, as Sir John M'Kenzio onco admitted' to me, fought very bravely against unfair and fraudulent accumulation by means of dummyism, and 1! was successful in assisting to stop a glaring injustice. • But as a close observer of what is going on around me, I cannot but see that theories ,aro in tho air, and being advocated in the public prints,, which ; appear to me utterly unsound-and misleading to the thoughtless.. I therefo'ro in my old ago venture; to pro-, sent to my fellow-citizens some thoughts which appear to mo to be founded on common sense. I claim to have the warmest sympathy with the workers," and am sorry to see them so easily misled. ■•' ■' -' ■ •.*■ '"' ■' A - '•■', '■■■'.' ■ Land, it has been said, is different from all other property, because it is a limited fixed quantity and. incapable of extension." But is it so? ~' _ '.•''' ,1. Even as'to area it is not strictly so. It can be extended by reclamation from the sea, as in Holland and in Venice, and to a limited ■ extant here under our very eyes in Wellington. It can be extended by reclaiming deserts, as has been and is being done to an enormous extent in America by irrigation, and by the same\ means to a considerable extent in Australia and elsewhere. It is being extended liere in New Zealand by reclaiming large swamps in the Auckland district. 11, of course, use the term land in the sense of. occupyable land, mere wastes are of no use'to anybody. .2. Then it can bo extended as to useful hess. Of what use is a waterless section a hundred miles from a port without roads, bridges or railways? You must dig a well and extend your land thus' perpendicularly though you, cannot laterally. - But even then though you may ..graze a few"cattle and 'feed yourself and'family, you cannot raise produce to send away without the means of communication with available marketssteamers, railways, roads,, and'bridges: When these come, the usefulness of your land ia extended enormously. 1 \ . ... ...'

3. Then as to productiveness, you may extend- this immensely by ploughing deeply, and trenching .'and: irrigating and draining and manuring. And .all the processes, from ploughing to •threshing' I ,and/ 'carting require horses and machinery, and oinploy outside labour. When it comes to mining you may sink; shafts for thousands of feet perpendicularly and run galleries laterally. Is not this an' extension of .'productiveness P. , To' make, a piece of land'doubly, and trebly productive is equivalent to.increasing the area. '■'.•• •The, use of the term "iand'' thus implies something more.'Bare land is, useless while it remains so. Useful.land means land plus labour, and skill and capital: You cannot put men on, th 6 land to grazo, like sheep, but you can put sheep, there and "find men ant!': clothe them' with what the sheep' produce.' And even that., requires, -.labour.. /:/' .'■/ .•-"'-. "-■'•••': B. ■"'■■■"■'. ■•':''■.''.■■ -'"

, Land then produces' property, ' and,' is of no use till it does, and when so improved my. property, becomes property itself, asyou cannot separate it from the man who causes it to produce wealth .without putting it back again into; 'a. state of" usolessness. -Not all men aro fit'to so use it as to bring it into ■a state of highest productiveness.' A: very largo proportion'of; our workers would do no good with the land if they were placed on it to.' cultivate it. "Thus a select class is created-who can and. do make the laiid productive, and so : confer immense benefits oil' the. State; I would give, every man a'chance 'to' try, but only a : certain proportion would succeed. '.' , ■'■■■ - : ;>•': , • .;.' ; ;'.'7c.,\v; ■'.■-:■;■;;•-■ v., -Then it is said that; on' the- grounds of abstract justice all men have 'an"equal- right to, the. soil. : ,L will.', quote a passage on this point from; tho '.Popular Encyclopaedia, published .by Blackie arid Son,:— '•■!•" "This right.'-.might-bo questioned, on . ; .'various, /grounds, but what''effectually . disposes of. it in. its naked, form is.its . utter impracticability. It would be dif- / ficult to establish the right cyen of •a ' •■''■ community to "the"territory on which it. ■:■.■' is settled if the 'territorial ;rights of eaoh, individual of the human race were: :'insisted : on j but taking the" community j "''and''.supposing'it to have a settled dis-. position of property on any conceivable • how .aro the rights of. the new' .members added by birth cr immigration to bo settled? It but disguises these'., ■ •difficulties to vest the: inalienable right" "'■.' in the. community . and inot in 'the indi- - vidual. Obviously,all individuals cannot. : bo treated alike, and . whether, 'the.;, monopolist be an individual or a collec-; ; fcive one, tho effects ,of . tho'-monopoly .mil: bo equally disadvantageous 'to . those who are.' excluded/ from it,'! - ■'." '■■• I would )'■ ask,", .would ' you •"■ maintain ■■ that every drunken : loafer,:, every criminal, every mail, physically unfitted to work on a farm, had an equal, right to that of tho sturdy agriculturist, who faced- all difficulties .and caused the soil to produce bountifully? But let us go a little further back, and consider,.what is the vposition in this Dominion of ours as to individual, right and titld to the land; The land, before it -came' into the . possession . of" the; white -inhabitants of New.'Zealand,, belonged..to. the Maoris, some of it .. does . still.'. Does .my Socialist brother, claim equal rights 'with tho Maoris, and acknowledge that they have equally inalienable rights with himself? If you say : civilised nations must., always dominate uncivilised, may I .not .also, say that tho educated r and fit must, .always dominate tho uneducated and unfit? .'The man that can make good use of the land for the benefit of the, whole community, : has surely a better-right to be secured in occupation than the'man who can't or won't. We' got part of. the land from the Maoris,by conquest, part by purchase. ; What happened then? It became Crown land, and was Crown granted under laws passed by , the' people's representatives and approved by, the Home Government, and it has been held'that all such land so parted with'is the .property of all the people in the British' Empire, and not only of those, who'happen to be in the Dominion now. But when granted to individuals by, the Crown, it becomes the duty of the whole British Empire to defend the titles from spoliation. ;. But where do we find equality?;. All physical nature depends upon inequalities of pressure to produce force. And so with industry. : Are the engine-driver and his fireman on an equality?.or-the foreman of large works equal with the stoker.'? As our great poet says:— _',-'■ ~ V "Order is. Heaven's first law, it stands confest; ~ "-. ,- ■ . Some are, and must be, greater than the rest." The Frenchmen will tell yon that the preat revolutionary cry for equality has had no rosult unless' you limit the meaning to equal rights before the law. As man is obviously a creature of widely differing capacities,' equality is impossible. But we' may have justice, sympathy, and regard for tho wants of''tho 'poor as well as the rioh, and I shall have more to say about this hereafter." I contend now that those'are not tho friends "of", the poor who base their proposals on fallacies, such as thoso I have endeavoured.to expose: My next article will bo on nationalisation of land. " ■ ■ i ■