"SONS OF THE SOIL."

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1509, 3 August 1912, Page 10

"SONS OF THE SOIL."

WANTS OF FARMERS. DEPUTATION TO PRIME MINISTER. POLICY INDICATIONS. Delegates to (he Dominion. Conference oi tlu- Farmers' Union, which lias ju«l lonclndcil its sidings in Wellington, waited last evening as a deputation upon the Hon. W. l\ M'assey (Prime Jliiii>lcr). The deputation was introduced by Jlr. !•'. W. Lang (member for Alnmtkau)'.

Land Settlement and Tenure, ilx. G. W. Leadley, who was the principal speaker on behalf of the deputation, congratulated Mr. Massey upon the position which ho now occupied, and said 'that nil present knew that the position Had, been honourably'-won. They wore confident that thoir interests as producers tverc safe in llio hands of the present Administration. Out' of many important questions discussed at tho conference, a few of the most important had been selected to bo laid before the Prime .Minister on this occasion. Other matters had been referred to the Dominion Executive of the Farmers' TJniqn, and that body would bring them under tho notice of members of tho Ministry on future occasions. Tlio first point to which they wished to direct attention was the necessity of pursuing a rigorous and settlement policy on tho optional : tenure. They held that the men on (ho | laud were the best judges of tenures, and | tnoy wished to emphasiso that all future settlement should lie on the optional system. I hey held also that in reference to and cut up in the future there should bo some modification of the residential conditions. Cases had been brought prominently before tho nol.ieo of their conference in which men engaged in professions in tins town would he glad to hold small blocks of land in the interests of their families, but were debarred from twinso by the residential conditions.

A Taxation Exemption. ■ The. conference held that rates levied for draiiMge, reading, etc., should bo credited to settlers as improvements. Tho amount of such rales should be capitalised on a five per cent, basis, and the amount thus arrived at should be deducted from the capital value for purposes of taxation. Native lauds not required by tho owners should be acquired and cut up tor settlement. Hates upon lnnd owned by Natives should be recovered in the ordinary way. Co-operative Works Condemned, The system of co-operative works, said Mr. Leadley, was antiquated and expensive, and would entail upon the future population of tho Dominion an amount of indebtedness which would debar the Government from giving those facilities which the people ought to possess in the transport of their goods. The adoption of better methods would mean a greater milcago of railways and roads, and an increased area of country opened up, for ft given expouditure. Settlers would certainly have cheaper rates of transport in futiiro if better methods of carrying out public works wero adopted. They asked the Government to support the .Sedgwick immigration scheme, and to give extended facilities for tho immigration of domestic and agricultural lalour. A shortage of labour in these classes at present hampered the progress of the country.

Some Hardships, The differential railway rates on Australian hardwood timber and on iniported coal should bo removed, as they imposed a most unfair handicap on settlers. Tho mortgage tax should bo abolished (as it was simply a tax upon a mail's debts), find that a tax upon income derived from investments should be substituted. Mr. Bwen Campbell strongly advocated the abolition of tho residential clause in connection witli the settlement of Crown lands. It was a bar to tho thrifty town man who wished to acnuiro a littlo land for the benefit of his children. Mr. W. J. Birch said that the differential railway rates bore hardest upon tho settlers who wero farthest from centres of population.

PRIME MINISTER IN REPLY. A VIGOROUS LAND SETTLEMENT POLICY. I Tho Prime Minister said that he was glad to havo on opportunity of meeting so many men who were, like himself, sons of tho soil. He had pleasure 'n announcing that within tho last few minutes another son of the soil—Mr. Lang, tho member for M'anukau—had been elected to .the very high and important position of Chairman of Committees and DeputySpeaker. (Applause.) Ho thanked the deputation for tho congratulations extended to himself.

As to the questions raised by the deputation, the Government not only intended to. pursue a vigorous land settlement policy on tho optional tenure, but were doing it already. That day he had instructed the officers of tho Lands Department to proceed with the surve" and subdivision of .'14,000 acres of land in tho Moeraugi Block, in the North Island, which the Government had recently acquired from the Natives. (Applause.) The land would he opened as soon' as' possible. Residential Conditions. ■ At ono time there had been a provision on tho New Zealand Statute Book which enabled a man to take up Crown lands, though he niiilit bo resident in a city. These non-resident selectors were required to prove their bone fides by making double the improvements on thoir holdings that wero required from resident settlers. Ho had heard that this was a very useful clause and had never heard any good reason advanced to explain Us repeal, Some cases of great hardship had been brought under his notice and he thought that it. would be a very good thin? to revive the clause for the benefit ofuien. who were able to prove that they intended to take up their residence on their sections in future. As to tho exemption of improvements resulting from expenditure in roading and draining several cases of this kind had been brought under his notice recently. Ho did not want to anticipate anything that might appear in the Financial Statement, but he had at" tho moment a Bill on the stocks, almost ready for tho printer, which went in the direction they had suggested. Future of the Maoris. - The point nlxmt Native lands was ono of tho most important that had been raised. He did not wont to deal with it at any length because it was in the domain of Mr. Herries, Minister for Native Affairs, but he was sure that they would soon have cause to bo satisfied with what Mr. Herries was doing. The. best thing that could happen to (he Maoris was that they should gradually work up to tho same position as was occupied by Europeans. All that he could do in connection with tho representations about the co-opera-tive, works policy was (o convey them to Mj\ Frnser, Minister for Public Works, from whom they would receive due and proper consideration. The Need for Population. The Primo Minister said that ho had been impressed by the remarks made with reference to the necessity of encouraging immigration, and especially with regard to tho Sedgwick experiment. The Government intended to consider this question very carefully. Ho hoped and believed that the new High Commissioner would Ire able to assist in this connection. Tho essential thing was to see that the right class of people were brought to New Zealand. (Hear, hear.) The country needed more population, but they would havo to he careful that tho people attracted to our shores wero likely fo be good, useful, and bona, fide settlers. If they got the class of whom he was thinking they could not get too many of them. The matter of railway rates'was under the control of Mr. Herries (.Minister foi Uoilwnys). The Government intended to take the question of railway rates in hand as' soon as it was po.-jible for them to do go. They intended to give spsci.il attention to the subject of differential rates, and he hoped that before long many anomalies would bo removed.

He agreed with them hi thinking that the mortgage lon tended to increase the rate of interest to tho borrower. (Hoar, hear.) Thoy might not bo able io give immediate effect to all the reforms that theby iuteuiicd to cqi.it out, but the re-

form to which they had referred would receive the attention of the .Minister for iinanco. They were under the necessity of being very careful about finance, anil could not do without 'much of the revenue they were now receiving, hut when tho timo came he would hear in mind what they had said about substituting an income lax for the mortgage tax. The Prime Minister concluded bv observing that- he would be glad to meet the executive of the Farmers' Cnion at any time, lie felt absolutely certain that a benefit conferred on farmers and settlers must benefit the whole Dominion. -Mr. Lang thanked the Prime Minister for receiving the deputation.