Evening Post. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1910. COMPULSORY LEASE POLICY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 62, 10 September 1910, Page 4

Evening Post. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1910. COMPULSORY LEASE POLICY.

The statement of Sir Josepn Ward •which we published yesterday with reference to the liability of a' landowner to the graduated land-tax after the Government has taken possession of his property under the Land Laws Amendment Bill, was frank and satisfactory. The Premier concedes that it would be unjust that this "bursting up" tax should continue to be payable after the bursting-up has been effected and the ownership has practically, though not technically, passed to the State. Provision for exemption had been included in the rough draft of the Bill, but it was subsequently overlooked, and the omission will be made good when the Bill is in committee. That other anomaly with which we dealt yesterday was not touched by Sir Joseph Ward, yet it must be th© result of an oversight just as much as the other, and is equally absurd and indefensible. What sane man, with his eyes open, could support a proposal to render a man whose property has an unimproved value of £40,000 liable to have ib reduced to £5000 by a compulsory process, while if its value were £1 less h© would be allowed to retain it all ? But after these and other anomalies which are sure to be discovered have been rectified, the Government will still be confronted with the most difficult task of all— that of justifying the policy of the compulsory lease. The proposal is that any man whose land has an unimproved value of £40.000 or more shall be compellable, subject to the right of exempting £6000 worth, to lease it to the Government for a' term of thirty-three years, with a perpetual right of renewal at a rental representing 4£ per cent, on the capital value. At the end of ten years the owner may require the Government to purchase the freehold or may be required by the Government to sell it, but during these ten years he will receive nothing for his property but the not very liberal allowance of 4£ per cent, on its value. The country has long since become accustomed to the principle of compulsory purchase, but the compulsory lease is a very different thing. On the most favourable hypothesis for the landowner, it means that he will have the use neither of his land nor of his capital for ten years. Regarded from the standpoint of the other party it means ] that the State will enter upon the land as purchaser, but with the right to withhold the payment even of so much [ as a 5 per cent, deposit for ten years. j It seems to us that in claiming the j power to make such a bargain the State is claiming far more than it has any right to claim. To take away a man's land is onei thing ; to lock up his capital is quite another thing. It is really adding to the principle of an enforced sale', with which the people of this country have grown familiar and content, I the principle of an enforced loan, with which their forefathers, in the good old days when kings governed as well as reigned, were familiar enough without being content. In our opinion it would be wrong to deprive a man not merely of the estate which he had acquired, but of the opportunity of turning the pur-chase-money immediately to such new enterprise as he might desire to select. In the long-run the locking-up of capital in this way would probably provo as inexpedient for the State as for the indivijusl 2 fpjt; Ike (res .circulation, g|

capital and the encouragement of private enterprise are matters of the first importance for the State itself. If the State needs to borrow money, let it do so in the open market and in the usual way. We aTe told, however, that a, precedent is to be found in the Small Holdings and Allotments Act passed by the British i Parliament in 1907. The answer is, in | the first place, that two blacks do -not make a white ; secondly, that the administration of that Act by the County Cduncils, which represent the landj owning class, has made it to a large exj tent a dead letter; and, thirdly, that in [ a vital point the measure differs widely from Sir Josepn Ward's Bill. The En« glish County Councils are expressly enjoined to avoid taking an undue or inconvenient quantity of land from any one owner or tenant; but the New Zealand Bill contemplates wholesale expropriation. In the case of the smallest estate that would be liable to compulsory acquisition by way of lease the proportion exempted would only be oneeighth of the whole, and, as the exemption is, as already mentioned, of the fixed value of £5000, the proportion diminishes as the size of the estate increases. The English ideal is to shave off the corners that can best be spared from the large estates, in order to provide homes for the agricultural labourers. The aim of the New Zealand clause is to appropriate a minimum of seven-eighths of every estate that is made subject to it. In th» one case the locking-up of capital is as small a matter as it is serious in the other. In a sphere -which is regulated by practical convenience, and not by abstract theory, a difference in degree •jften becomes a difference in kind, and this i 3 a case in point.