THE LAND CAMPAIGN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXII, Issue 129, 28 November 1906, Page 3

THE LAND CAMPAIGN.

SPEECH BY THE HON. R. M'NAB. GOVERNMENT PROPOSALS ELABORATED. THE £50,000 CLAUSE. [Bt TsHG9>rß.] (From Our Special Reporter.) AUCKLAND, 27th Novomber. The Hon. R. M'Nab, Minister for Lands, opened the campaign on the Land Bill in the Auckland province at Onohunga to-night. There was a crowded audience. Mr. John Rowe, Mayor of Onehunga, presided. Mr. M'Nab, who was received with loud applause, said though he appeared in Onehunga as a Minister of the Crown explaining his Bill on the eve of an election, he was not present to interfere with their choice of a member; all he had to do was to take care that when they went to select their representative they were able to form an opinion on wfcat were as near correct facts as could be got. (Applause.) He did not regret the Land Bill had created such interest from one end of the colony to the other. It was a good sign when there was a great agitation on such a public question. When the subject was before Parliament last year the late Premier did not consider tho time yet ripe to interfere, but it was the first question that facsd the Ward Administration. Mr. M'Xab went on to give the history of the land problem, from the introduction of the late John M'Kenzie's Land for Settlement policy. Mr. MKenzio asked for a million and a quarter pounds per annum for close settlement, and beyond that h& asked for power, if the land was not available, to step in and take up large estates, and cut them up for small farms. In 1894 a great portion of the lands of the colony had been disposed of, and the Government had to step in and take it compulsorily to meet the demands of the people. With the continuous prosperity of the colony there was an ever-increasing demand for land. The four million pounds spent so far in the acquisition of land for settlement had purchased only a small area. Under the existing conditions they would need to spend one million pounds per annum to buy private estates to enable the people who wanted land and could not get it to procure it in the market. That was an absolutely impossible position. I£ ; the Minister for Lands was worth his 1 salt, he had not to wait for financial ruin but to anticipate the ' unevitable "and come down with his scheme without delay. There were numbers of people who owned a great area of pro perty — land that a Jew years ago was worth £50,000 -was nSVvT mrfCh. 0100,000, and soon would be worth J8200, 0Q0. EXIGENCIES OF THE CUSE. He admitted that the land policy w«, 5 an interference with tha rights of pri^ vate property, but in the exigencies of the case that was unavoidable. He was a farmer and a land owner, and he knew he could not turn in any direction without being met by restrictions. ! It was an old but exploded theory, that if a man owned land he could do with it what he liked. They had added another restriction by which those who had land of large area than they could make use of wero compelled to recognise the needs of the State ; they must let some of their land go to the market and sacrifice some of their land for the benefit of the wholo people. The machinery had been put in position to secure that this should be done. (Applause). They had provided that a man owning, over £50,000 worth of property should bo given ten years' to get rid of the surplus. Tho market at present was a very good one. If they gave a man ten years they could not be said to be urging undue haste. The owner could sell to whom he pleased, and in what areas he pleased, subject to certain restrictions. At the <lnd of ten years if a man had not reduced his property below £50,000 in value, the Minister for Lands stepped in, cut a piece off, and put the surplus upon the market. That was the Government's interference. With regard to large land owners it was said that tho owner would cut his land into two portions, give one portion to his elder son, and so evade the law ; but there the Act would come into operation. Every man that bought from another had to make a declaration on the transfer that he was not the owner of such an area, which, added to the piece which he bought, did not exceed in value £50,000. Mr. M'Nab said he regarded the rent clause as the greatest of all the clauses in the Land Bill. In one of the southern districts a piece of j land was put into the market. The valuation was £11 per acre. One map in the locality had been putting by his savings for years to buy the property ; he was in a position to buy up to £20 per acre, but he was outbid, and the land was knocked down to the owner of a. big estate alongside, who had already three times as much land as he required. The man who really needed the land had to remain on the labour market in competition with other labourors. EFFECT OF THE LIMITATION CLAUSE. Under the £50,000 clause tho man who purchased that land would not have been able to bid at the auction, and the section would have fallen to the labourer, (Applause.) When the Bill was first brought down there was an acreage limitation, and under that restriction he (the Minister) would have been unable to purchase another acre of load, except in the city. The House decided, and he thought wisely, to make the limitation one of value. He found on looking for the views of public men that tho limitation of estates was one of their foremost planks, and he found that it was one of the planks of the Farmers' Union. He thought it was one point upon which he could net make a- mistake, but it seemed to have created chaos. (Laughter.) Showing how the restriction would J affect the owners of large private estates, Mr M'Nab said that when the Land Bill was tinder way a syndicate had rushed through the purchase of some land, and upon that land they had since made a profit of £40,000. The profit did not go to the owner, but to the syndicate, und the mass of the community that settled on the land bad to pay £40,000 extra. Had the Bill been passed at that time the land would have had to be cut up and sold in small areas. They now saw who it was that were crying out against the. Land Bill, and from whom ths bulk of the hostility to tno Bill came. (Applause.) The new legislation i would , have secured the purchaser dealing directly with tho seller. At present a small farmer going into the market went in direct competition with men who already had moro than they wanted. He did not advocate that .owners should be compelled to do away with the competitive system, but that every man who wanted to acquire land should be able to obtain it under a system of legitimate competition. PERPETUAL LEASE CONDEMNED. He had in his earlier speeches condemned the system of perpetual lease as being neither a lease to the leaseholder nor a freehold to the freeholder. A large number of the leases so acquired hod beea .surrendered and taken up again

under the optional system, and were now held as freehold. The perpetual freehold produced all sorts of harrassing restrictions that were done away with under the present proposals.' A man could pay up to from 50 to 90 per cent, of the capital value, and when he had paid 90 per cent, he would only require to pay one-tenth of what the rent originally was, and he would be absolved from any harrassing conditions. He would be relieved of all restrictions under tho lease, but he must continue to pay rent and carry out the covenants regarding the lease. The Government proposed to do away with the 999 years', lease, and substitute one of 66 yeare, with one right of renewal. He knew there were a number of party men wanting the freehold. No doubt if he (Mr M'Nab) held a lease-in-perpetuity and thought there was a chance of getting the freehold he would not hesitate to get it. If he knew the land could be got as a free gift from the State he would do bis best to get it, and so the lease-in-perpetuity holder wanted the freehold. Did lie want the land at its value to-day? There were in the House something like a bare majority who wanted the freehold ; some wanted it at what they called the original value, others said if lease-in-perpetuity tenants are granted the freehold at the original value it would be robbing the State. When they went into the House and laid down the terms upon which they would grant lease-in-perpetuity tenants tho freehold tenure at the original value they would be defeated by something like twenty votes. (Supposing it was proposed to give the leasehold at the present values every one of these men would vote with the leaseholders. The Government did not offer the land at its original or at its present value ; they gave 90 pe*cent, of the freehold for 999 years ; they said to the holders of lease-in-perpetuity land, "We will give you 90 per cent, of the original value, put you in the position of a freeholder by releasing you irom all haxrassing conditions, but it is still to be a lease inasmuch as T,he land is to revert to the Crown at the end of the term, and there is rent to pay to the Crown. But outside of that we are prepared to give you everything." (Applause.) YVhen the great question came to be settled, and when both proposals wero rejected, the proposals of the Land Bill would bo hailed by both sides of the House as the only workable scheme, and they would be carried without a division. (Applause.) "A SENTIMENTAL DIFFERENCE." H« had been told that they had gone a very long way, and it would be a very nice thing if they went the Test of the distance and gave the freehold. (Laughter.) Land which to-day was of no value at aU. or that oupported only the beasts of the Seld, lands now representing a valus c-f three millions, would be worth hundreds of millions of money perhaps at the end of the 999 ysars. It might be only a sentimental difference, and if so it was surely worth the while of the fieeholdcrs to swallow the sentiment, and get all the advantages that -vero offered by the new Land Bill. The / in the North Island said the- delations in the Bill weTe the proposals with Tegard to national endowments, ■while tk» leading papers in the South Island said the Ministry would find no difficulty in carrying tfieir national endowments policy. The Southern press, especially the press ' the extreme South, anticipated no real difficulty in this direction, for the South had benefited immensely in the past by such endowments. It was said that in tho North Island theTe was land of* such a' class that it could not be settled except under tho freehold tenure. That he submitted was taking an extreme view of *he position. The laijd could be <lisprned of under a reasonable system. The Government- did not ask a man to go on unprofitable land and comply with all the restrictions applying to first-daes land; they had a lease that was capable of expansion, that would mott tho difficulties with regard to this land. The Forostry Department now had a system under whick th«y disposed of very poer land whereby it did nob get one penny from it for eighty, ninety, or one hundred years. They could postpone the time- for the next two or three generations, but eventually they would bo recouped. It was upon these lines that the Ward Administration intended to deal with the refractory lands of tk» colony. (Applause.) When he had sesn these lands he had a free hand from Sir Joseph Ward to say what his policy would be with regtrd to them. He believed that when people thoroughly understood the- Government proposals they ivould agree that the terms offered were even more attractive than the freehold sj'stem itself, and he believed that the policy they would be «ible to declare would settle the question once and for all. The 50 per cent, and 90 per cent, when paid off the purchase- money would not be spent as ordinary revenue, but would be handed to the Lands for Settlement Board, and again invested in the purchase of other estates. It was invested at 6 per cent., ranking a profit of 1£ per cent., and ironld provide the whole of the money required for the lands for settlement policy. They had four and a- half millions invested in tho purchase of estates Of the three-quarters of a million pounds' worth of Crown lands under L.I.P every tenant would be privileged to pay off 90 per cent., and there would be such an amount paid intothe Land for Settlement Account that the Government would have all they required without going to financiers in the colony or outside of the colony to purchase large private estates. Under the new lease, when a man had paid off 50 per cent, of bis loan his land would not have to be surrendered! for non-payment of tent. The Government was prepared to deal with him an was dope in the case of life insurance policies, allowing unpaid rent to stand agaicat accumulated profits until be came down, from 90 per cent, to 50 per cent., but then they called a halt; below that, the restrictions came into operation. At any time, however, the man could pay back the money and restore tho total to its original position. That was an enormous advantage. Tho Government was prepared to go even further. A man who had. paid 90 per cent, could, at any tune apply to have money from the bO per cent, limit refunded, to him as a loan without further expenditure or legal charges. (Applause.) He ventured to say that/ there never was submitted to the people of any country a proposal so wide, so far reaching, and so liberal in regard to the renewable Jeoeo. (Applause.) AGRICULTURAL MATTERS. Intimately associated with the Lands and Agricultural portfolios a- largo amount of work was being done. One of the first things done was to arrange for the separation of the Stock Department from v, host of other departments. The cry had been raised that the Ministry was a South Island Ministry, yet tke flwt act he did was to do to Auckland to find a man to take cnarga of the Stock, Depirtment. It wa» the intention of tho Government to do all it possibly roald to make the Agricultural labour of the coJoay as profitable aa it possibly could. He commented upon the clever invention* in agricultural implements within the colony, and used this as an illustration of the extent to which the interests of tho mochanic and the agriculturist are bound up. Though tfeo Government was doing all it possibly could to encourage a hotter breed of animals and better means of . cultivation, it was only being produced in order that men should gain v. livelihood from the coil, and' not that singlo individuals

should pocket the dividends. (Applause ) Mr. M'Nab referred to tho terrible Testnctions placed upon agriculture by tho great Tailroad monopolies in Canada, and expressed thankfulness that New Zealand agriculturists had not such a disease as that to cope with. But they should take care that the disease was not introduced • they must take care that they did not part with the land that was the heritage of the people to those who would accumulate large values and vast power that would not be used in tho best interests of the people of the colony. (Loud and prolonged cheers.) RESOLUTION PASSED. On- the motion of Mr. D. A. Sutherland the following motion was carried unanimously .-—"That this meeting thanks Mr. M'Nab for hie enlightening and statesmanlike address on the Land Bill, with tli© provieions of which this meeting | heartily agree." A counter-pi-o-posal making an emphatic protest against the attempt of the Government to do away with the optional land tenure met with little support, only about half «i dozen voting foT it The meeting concluded with loud cheers for Mr. M'Nab, a call for cheers for Mr. Massey and the freehold being greeted with mingled cheers and hooting.