LABOUR LAND POLICY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1131, 19 May 1911, Page 5

LABOUR LAND POLICY.

9 A NEW SOUTH WALES BILL. By Telegraph—Press Association-Oopyrishl Sydney, May 18. In the State Assembly, the Hon. C. G. Wade, ex-Premier, tabled a censure motion on the Government's proposal for the repeal of the Conversion Act, under which homestoad selectors are allowed to obtain the freehold of their holdings. ' Mr. Wade said he condemned the proposal in the interests of thoso who had been led to expect they would be able to convert their holdings into freehold. AN EXTEAOEDINAEY SITUATION. In a-recent policy speech the ActingPremier of New South Wales, Mr. Holman, said:—"When wo took office we wero determined to enter upon the greatest task which confronts any Labour Government—that of effocting tho settlement of the people upon the soil. The first thing we wanted to knbw. was how much Crown land available for' settlement wo actually had. Shall I be believed when I tell this audienco that, apparently, thnt question had never been asked by our predecessors, that , : th<;r.e was-no &uch information available, nor was there even a map showing Crown lands, still remaining in the different districts, and their'nature. My colleagues had. to.fiend: out, district by district; to all the surveyors and demand that each ,one should—apparently for the first time in. his life—ascertain what Crown lands remained in his district, and how they were being used. This has been done. "Information has now been obtained, as eSpeditiously as possible, and is now, after some months of indefatigable exertion, complete. And with what result? With the result that, we find now that in land let out under improvement loase, .in land under permissive Occupancy and Under annual lease, in land hold under forest' and water and mineral reserves, that are no longer needed, in land let out under improvement lease, which ought never to have been granted, or which having been granted ought to havo been cancelled, we can get altogether, without resuming a solitary acre, a sum total of nearly 10,000.000 acres of land, all suitable for settlement in larger or smaller blocks, whose very existence was, I venture to say, concealed from Parliament." The Government alra intended. Mr. Holraan stated, to con?olidatp. the 27 existing land Acts, and to bring in an amending Bill to repeal the Act, which entitles a homestead selector to convert his holding from leasehold to freehold. At the end of twelve months the homestead selector would lose this right, which, said the Minister, in the great majority of eases was a right he did not possess at the moment when he took up his selection.