THE NEW LAND ACT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3497, 21 September 1882, Page 4

THE NEW LAND ACT.

Sib, —I am surprised that journals of as much importance as tho Daily Telegraph and Wairarapa Standard should publish articles upon political debates based upon the condensed newspaper reports of the proceedings of Parliament, instead of waiting for the full text of Hansard. I am especially induced to say this on account of your remarks and those of the other journal I referred to on the debates upon the Land Act 1877 Amendment Bill 1882 in the Legislative Council. With regard to myself you are welcome to your opiniou ; it is a matter of no moment to anybody but myself, and I can survive your strictures. But th? character of a public bill is a matter of public importance, and you err when you state that Mr Rolleston's'Land Amendment Act is is any sense a liberal measure. Moreover, you clearly have not read the debates, or you would not think my action, or that of the independent members of the Legislative Council to have been dictated by Tory (whatever you think that means in New Zealand) prejudices. The first principle of liberal land legislation is to regard as its primary object the settlement of bona fide residents and industrious people on the land, and to loot upon the revenue obtained from the land itself, by sale or lease as of secondary importance. Thus Canada and the Cape, the United States and Brazil, with many other colonies and countries, give lands gratis to occupying settlers, and even our province of Auckland obtained the bulk of its population in that way. The undisguised object of Mr Rolleston's Act was to get the largest possible rent, by tender, at first, and after thirty years to confiscate the increment of value to the State in order to increase the revenue. The bill in its principle was a caricature of Mr Stout's proposals, and has been qualified as Stout and water legislation. Mr Stout's proposals were based on the theory of nationalisation of tho land, and in order to facilitate that policy he proposed to substitute a perpetual lease at a fixed rental for freehold sale of land. Hod he succeeded in this at the time the Ftate would be the landlord of an immense area of land, now passed away from it for ever, and dealing with the remainder held in fee would have been easier and less expensive hereafter. Now, the plan proposed by Mr Rolleston is not the simple substitution of perpetual lease for all other tenures as proposed by Mr Stout, but the addition of a scheme of his own to the already too many kinds of land tenure in New Zealand. He had never ventilated this idea to enable the public to judge its suitability to the colony, It was opposed to all recent legislation and public opinion in England, and while the Government declined to accept it as a Ministerial measure (being, it was supposed, themselves divided about it), Mr Rolleston's strongest plea for its acceptance was that it was worth a trial —in fact, a speculative experiment in land legislation. Of the liberality of the measure it is not difficult to judge. Firstly, the tenant had to tender, the highest tenderer getting the lease ; and, secondly, when he had paid rates for thirty years, and increased tho value enormously, the Government was to rack-rent him and make him pay five per cent for his next term upon the increased Taluation, or he had to turn out. His improvements were protected in a way, but rather hazily ; he might remain as caretaker till a new Government tenant could be found who would pay the assessed value ; but if he did not choose to remain on so unsettled a tenure, there was no provision to ( protest his improvements from depreciation. The Legislative Council believed that the acquisition of land in freehold or on some almost equivalent tenure formed the chief attraction to immigrants of the agricultural class to settle here, and they consequently amended the hill in the direction of affording the Crown tenants a purchasing clause. The Bill compelled the tenant's actual residence on the land from within six months of his obtaining his lease for six years, and as the tenants might be only eighteen years old the Council considered it undesirable to insist on personal residence so long as tho very stringent yearly improvement clauses were fulfilled. Lastly, the Council, whioh is often accused of being reactionary, retained the M'Xenzie clause, limiting the extent of Crown land which a single runholder might occupy, adding only a proviso protecting the interest of the mortgagee in cases where he might have a security. These principles will be found to be now engrafted on the bill, though, from a desire to meet Mr Rolleston in a conciliatory spirit, the original amendments were modified, and perhaps more clearly defined in conference. The last objection the Council took to the bill was the section under which the payment of the nominated Land Board was largely increased, and upon this point they would allow of no compromise. It will, therefore, be seen that the new Bill confers a purchasing clause upon all tenants, save those who take leases within proclaimed goldfields, where it was proved in conference that complete alienation of land is undesirable, also that residence is not compulsory upon youths residing with their relatives in the district for the three first years, and tbat the proviso to the M'Keuzie clause is operative only for three years, within which time the mortgagee must realise if he has country leased from the Crown capable of carrying more than '20,000 sheep in all. I cannot think that the outcome of tho Bill from the revision of the Council has been in any Bense to decrease its liberal character. Personally, when the Bill was introduced, I despaired of its being fully considered so late in the session, and endeavored to delay its coming into law until we had had a few months time to allow its principles to be criticised by the public. A small majority decided to go on with the Bill instead of delaying its consideration for six or seven months till Parliament again assembled. Happily this one Bill was not hurried thi-ough the Council as too many bills are the last week of the session, and all the objections I raised to its provisions were supported by considerable mojorities in committee. I regret that the question of tender as against ballot was not more fully considered, but with that one flaw I think the Act as amended will prove a beneficent and liberal piece of legislation, resulting, where the land is suitable, in \cry valuable settlements throughout the colony. As to the terms "Tories," " Conservative?," or " Liberals," as understood in England, they have no application here whatever, and I regret to say advisedly that party government is becoming daily more and more impossible, and that, whatever party is in power, none can follow out any honest principle till Parliament is radically reformed. The Premier has deliberately stated that government without loans is impossible in New Zealand, and until proper local government is inaugurated to take away from the House the local expenditure out of loan moneys, I believe honest government has become so. A document I perused but recently, which may yet be published, will show by what means the present Government obtained the secession of tho " rats " of 1879, and how far it considered principles against which, as a party, it had contended, worth maintaining after it acquired office. Unhappily it has become too frequent to hear of a road or bridge as the price of a vote, and as the present Government party ha 3 borrowed 24i millions out of the 27 millions borrowed since 1870, and as its Premier assures us he must continue to borrow in order to govern, I presume we shall go on till, like tho " unspeakable Turk," we have to accept £40 for our £100 debenture. Major Atkinson has already once accepted £80 for our hundred pound bonds at 4 per cent., and when tho present loan is finished I fear we shall bo obliged to submit to a heavier discount still. It is a sad reflection, which cannot be avoided, that there are here but two parties, the ins and the outs. If so much has gone to the districts whose representatives support the Continuous Ministry, is it in human nature to conceive that when their opponents obtain office that they too will not have supporters who want roads and bridges for

their constituents ? It i 3 a pitiful tale, and has little or nothing to do with Whigs, Tories, or Radicals. It is the history of tin epoch in our colonial history which future generations will look back upon with shame, and find it hard to excuse. It has nothing or next to nothing to do with railways or reproductive expenditure, which has amounted to less than half the debt, and which might.perhaps be justified. It is the story of a country run road, a young spendthrift colony wasting its inheritance, and preparing an old ago of penury and privation for this generation, and a long struggle with adversity upon the next—at least so it seems to me, perhaps from what you aro pleased to call my "Tory" prejudices." [Our correspondent has neither signed nor dated the above letter, but we publish his communication, not only on account of its value, but because we believe it can only emanate from the pen of the Hon. Colonel Sir G. S. Whitmore.—Ed. D.T.]