Evening Post THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 1943. A REVOLUTIONARY BILL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 31, 5 August 1943, Page 4

Evening Post THURSDAY, AUGUST 5, 1943. A REVOLUTIONARY BILL

The Minister of Lands said that the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Bill had been asked for up and down the country, by the Farmers' Union, by the Chambers of Commerce, and particularly by the R.S.A. He is no doubt correct if he means that these bodies have asked the Government for legislation to facilitate land settlement by returned men, but if his remarks, are intended to imply that the specific provisions of the Bill have been sought, or have the approval, of organised primary industry, commerce, and returned servicemen, we should like to see the evidence. Has the measure been submitted to the bodies named, and, if so, what have they said about it? We cannot credit' that the revolutionary and far-reaching.'restrictions upon property transactions could be welcomed by organisations such as those named, in'the airy and easy way that the Ministers remark implies. Let there be no doubt about it, the restrictions are revolutionary. They are a long step in curtailment of private ownership in. land and dwell-, tags. Indeed, they represent marked progress towards retracing Labour policy towards land nationalisation —a policy that Labour gradually forsook in the years when it was trying to modify its platform to win public approval. In those days Labour watered down land nationalisation to the "usehold." and then to a proposal that no land should be sold or transferred except to the State, and this latter was again watered down to "except through the State." The Bill now put forward is just this. The State has an option—at an arbitrarily fixed value—upon all property that the owner wishes to sell, and. even if the j State chooses not to exercise that option, its approval of any other transaction must be obtained before the transfer (except by inheritance) can be made.

Good arguments may be advanced for the ends that the Government claims to have in view. It can be saidi and all will agree, that soldiers should not be exploited in their purchase of property that they have been fighting to protect. But the' measure is not limited to transactions with returned servicemen. It whittles away considerably the rights of ownership, for the rights of ownership include not only the "usehold"—the right to occupy—but also the right to transfer the property owned. And this whittling applies, as we read the summary, of the Bill, to the property of servicemen themselves. Certainly no land owned by a serviceman overseas may be compulsorily acquired for subdivision,' but the married soldier who owns his own home will find on his return that his right to sell that house freely on his return has been limited. There is no mention of a wartime limit upon the restrictions. It may be said, again, that other prices have been stabilised, and why should not-land and house property be stabilised "too? But there is a considerable difference between fixing the prices of consumable commodities which have a passing scarcity value and determining for all time the value of permanent assets. A person who buys a house or farm buys, if he is sensible, not for present needs alone but for the future. There may be, and there always will be, some persons who will buy foolishly. But the State is nojt justified in undermining the whole -system of ownership for the protection of people of this kind. It has gone far already in limiting, by the Fair Rents Act and its amendments, the right of ownership, but such measures are stated to be temporary—until the scarcity of houses can be overcome. This Bill is anything but temporary. It must be remembered also, when stabilisation is mentioned, that if ithe stabilisation measures already operating are effective they should stabilise property values. If produce prices and costs are stabilised, the land should retain its former productive value —no more and no less. If building costs—materials and wages—are stabilised, then existing property should have a stable value—the replacement value. If the necessity for the measures now proposed is stressed it certainly implies that the present stabilisation is far less effective than claimed.

Space does not permit of examination of this long and involved Bill in detail. But attention must be directed to one outstanding machinery defect— the vagueness of the measure of valuation. "Basic value" for land sales is the old productive value, qualified by several new and variable factors. Even with a Land Sales Court working overtime on appeals and trying to standardise sales committee decisions, the whole business must be confused and must lessen confidence. With house property the position is even worse. There can be no "productive value" and the urban land is to have its value fixed "as at December 15, 1942, increased or reduced by such amount as the committee thinks fit in order to make it a fair value today." This, then, is to be the basis on_ which the owner is to be deprived of the sales right left to him by Fair Rentlaws (which prevent him often from giving possession). His sale is to be on the basis of what a committee "thinks -fit"! It is to be earnestly hoped that Parliament will not stultify itself by permitting the passage of such a revolutionary and hotch-potch measure on the slender excuse that it is necessary to prevent the exploitation of soldiers.