WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1908. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE FREEHOLDERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 137, 9 December 1908, Page 6

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1908. THE GOVERNMENT AND THE FREEHOLDERS.

There is good reason for believing that the Premier is being urged by a section of his followers to avoid the danger of a collision with the freqholders during the coming session by shirking the land question altogether. To treat these timid counsels with tho contempt which they deserve should be the easier for the Premier since they could not possibly succeed, even if the attempt were made. Of course nobody expects the Government to reopen the general settlement of the land question which was effected by the legislation of last year. There was not a word in any of the Ministerial speeches during the campaign to suggest such a possibility. Though the three measures which were pat through m 1907 were avowedly of the nature of a compromise, the Government is bound, during the present Parliament, not to reopen ikedther by granting increased facilities to the Crown tenants for acquiring the freehold, or by giving to the State the further protection which it sorely needs against the dissipation of its estate. But, in the first place, to shirk a discussion of the land question is impossible, since the Opposition could raise it on the Address-in-Eeply, or in a dozen other ways, and it is absolutely certain that one or more of these opportunities will be made use of, whatever the Government's wishes' may be. Secondly, the Government is definitely pledged to one important measure of land legislation, which cannot possibly be postponed. Though it does not touch the Crown lands, the Land Settlement Finance Bill has z very important bearing upon the freehold question, and may be the indirect means of averting, or at any rate greatly weakening, the attack to which the pubflic estate has been exposed for so many years at £he hands of those who think that nothing short of a freehold is good enough for the farmer. To refuse to proceed with this Bill would be the height of folly no less than of bad faith, for the relief which the Government may hope to get from it against fflre pressure of the freeholders is just as obvious as the obligation of their undertaking to proceed with it. The Premier would indeed be foolish to refuse to proceed with, a measure which leaseholders and freeholders have agreed to bless, and those who are responsible for the suggestion must have failed to realise the nature both of the Bill itself and of the pledges which he has repeatedly given to proceed with it. The cleverness of the Land Settlement Finance Bill is that it proposes to satisfy the appetite for the freehold without trenching on the public estate, and without imposing any strain on the public funds. It thus possesses great advantages over both the optional method of dealing with the Crown lands and the procedure under the Land for Settlements Act. The objoct of the Bill is to facilitate the multiplication of small freeholds by the subdivision of large > ones. It .will not increase the Quantity

of private freehold, but only the number of freeholders. The Bill will enable any ten or more applicants who are desirous of purchasing a large estate, or a part oi one, for subdivision and bona fide settlement, to raise the whole of the purchase money on a mortgage which, if the Land Purchase Board approves of the price antl the terms of the purchase, will have a State guarantee behind it. Wrtn the double protection of the land and the State gaarantee, the mortgagee win hb provided with giltedged security of the very highest quality, which will enable the jmrchasers to raise a hundred per cent, of their purchase money on mortgage, at a rate one or two per cent, lower than that at which any ordinary mortgagor could raise two-thirds of his purchase money. At the same time the State, instead of either sacrificing its own land as under the optional system, or incurring the enormous expenditure involved by purchase under the Land for Settlements Act, will have its liability limited to a contingent guarantee which, if the Land Purchase Department conducts its valuations with due caution, should never cost it a single penny. Freeholders welcome the scheme as bringing more freehold into the market, and leaseholders welcome it as satisfying the demand of the freeholders without robbing the State. With such a backing surely the Premier will proceed with his Bill without a moment's hesitation, confident that its passage will present a delightful contrast to the many storms which the Land Bills of 1906 and 1907 had to encounter. He will make the concessions to the freeholders which are embodied m this Bill, but at the same time he will, we trust, show by his selection of Mr. M'Nab's successor as Minister of Lands that the freeholders ■ are to have no further concessions at the cost of the State. They got a good deal by the legislation of 1907, but it is a case of "Thus far, but no farther," during the present Parliament.