LAND SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 43, 19 August 1943, Page 6

LAND SETTLEMENT

THE SALES BILL

DEBATE IN HOUSE

The second-reading debate on the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales Bill was continued in the House of Representatives yesterday. Including one member who had commenced his speech at a previous sitting, thirteen members spoke. Among those who took part was Major C. F. Skinner, the newly-appointed Minister of Rehabilitation, who made his first speech since his return from overseas.

Mr. E. P.' Meachen (Government, Marlborough), asked the critics of the proposed land sales committees to realise that there were 6000 land committees operating in Britain and that they completely controlled the use of the farming land.

Mr. A. S. Sutherland (National, Haurbaki) contended that the Bill would create an army of public servants so big that New Zealand would reach the point when nobody would count except politicians and civil servants.

Mr. J. Robertson (Government, Masterton) said that one Of the twin objectives of the measure was the stabilisation of land values and the postponement of the Bill would be fatal to that objective, in which the members of the Opposition also claimed to believe. Referring to the mortgage adjustment committees set up in the depression period, Mr. Robertson said that at that time mortgages were reduced to their proper value. The Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr. Parry): The farmers did not 6b-_ | ject then. CITY VALUES. Mr. E. B. K. Gordon (National, Rangitikei) said that land values were stabilised to a certain extent today on account of primary produce being stabilised. Speculators would not buy farm lands because they knew that prices of produce were at their maximum and that after the war they might decrease instead of increasing. What should be done was to concentrate on city values and build homes for returned men. ?here was no case for the State stepping in with a view to fixing a value, because it would create a black market, which was most undesirable: If the Government did not want to take One-man farms, the Bill should say so, and it should also say that a man's home could not be taken. A more unscrupulous Government might occupy the Treasury Benches in the years to come and put clauses of the Act into full operation. It had cost the State £20,654.000 for the settlement of soldiers on the land after the last war, said Mr. J. Thorn (Government, Thames). The loss to the .State, including, writings-off, revaluations, remissions, and various concessions, totalled £12,567,000. That figure took no account whatever of what was lost by the soldiers themselves. It would be shameful if any repetition were allowed of the mistakes that occurred after the last war. LEASEHOLD AND FREEHOLD. One of the tricks of the Opposition, he continued, was to try to distort the Bill by raising the cry about the freehold tenure, but so far as the soldiers of this war who had been settled on the land were concerned the freehold had been granted. He thought the question of tenure would be solved along various lines. If the soldiers from this war were placed upon Crown lands and were given the same right to purchase the freehold as was given to the soldiers after the last war, in all probability they would make the same overwhelming declaration in favour of the leasehold as the soldiers had after the last war. Leasehold gave them the opportunity of holding on to their liquid cash, whereas under the freehold principle they would have been obliged to spend their cash and then borrow for the development of their properties. What the Opposition did not appear to understand was that we were living in a changing world. The Opposition always wanted to be about 200 years behind any change that had become necessary. In every other part of the world, particularly in Britain, great changes were taking place in regard to land questions. No radical change in the land laws of the country should be rushed through in the dying stages of the session, said Mr, C. G. E. Harker (National, Waipawa), who urged that the Bill should be circulated throughout the country and a committee of all sides of the House should be set up to hammer out a measure worthy of the title of the Returned Servicemen's Settlement Bill. As it stood at present the Bill contained far • too little to promote soldiers' settlement and far too much designed to restrict the I freedom for which the soldiers were [ fighting. AN "OCTOPUS CLAMP." The Opposition would willingly assist in the passing of any rational measure to prevent the orgy of speculation which the Government members professed to fear, said Mr. Harker. If that fear was honest they had been very late in introducing a measure to check it. The Opposition said it could be done without putting an "octopus clamp" on every inch of soil in New Zealand. The Opposition said that land should be and could be acquired for soldier settlement under Acts already on the Statute Book at fair market value. SOLDIERS' REQUIREMENTS. The Minister of Rehabilitation (Major C. F. Skinner) quoted the rise in house property prices as a complete refutation of the suggestion that the market value should be the basis of sales to returned servicemen. Critics of the : Bill were concerned more about property owners than the men whose services had kept those properties from being what insurance people would have called a bad risk when Japan seemed to be actually threatening this country. The returned men would be given opportunities of going on to economic holdings, and the country should not be asked to throw money away on fictitious values. Actual experience with men returned from the present war disproved the suggestion that they were being denied the freehold. There had been purchases for soldier settlement of 32,000 acres, and the total area now available was 126,782 acres There had been 214 men placed on the land, and they included 100 who were holding the freehold.

He had been living for the last few years with soldiers whose chief topic when they had a chance to chat was what they were going to do when they

got home. His own opinion was that not more than 10 per cent, of them would want to go on the land.

He had heard them discussing the conditions which their fathers had to put up with after the last war, and he felt sure the present Government would "not allow that state of things to be repeated; "This Bill is so comprehensive that it goes beyond being a war measure," declared Mr. F. Langstone (Government, Waimarino). "It is something for the permanent benefit of New Zealand. It is a referee's Bill to see fair play between the buyer and seller of land." The Bill would, give a lead to the people, and was going to settle soldiers and others who wanted property according to one common law of justice. It was not only generous to the buyer today but also to the seller, because the seller of today might be the buyer of tomorrow, and he would get the same measure of justice meted out to him as when he sold his property. A man's right to sell was not taken away, but there was a procedure and a formula that had to be complied with, and because of that machinery the Bill was protective and not restrictive.

The National Party did not agree that any property owner should profit out of re-establishment of returned servicemen either on the land or in homes, said Mr. W. Sullivan (National, Bay of Plenty). They did not want to see land bought for rehabilitation at high speculative values but at fair values, and it should be handed over to the returned servicemen at a productive value. The National Party was opposed to settling returned men in the backblocks away from the amenities of civilisation.

Mr. Clyde Carr (Government, Timaru) said that the purpose of the Bill was not to nationalise land or homes. . That cry had been heard at every election, but nationalisation had not been in the Government's mind. What was wanted was security, and better a bad law and a good Government administering it than a good law and a bad Government administering it. Everything depended on the Government. If the Government had given security and restored prosperity and still maintained those things in, spite of the war was it going to de-' stroy what it had built? "The best is not too good for the men fighting for us at the front," said Mr. H. Atmore (Independent, Nelson). The country was not being generous to the members of the forces, but was extending to them _. simple act of justice. The question of leasehold and freehold was more or less academic. He wondered why the Government did not say straight out that the men could have the freehold. There was a desire on the part of men and women to feel that they owned the property they had, but they never really owned it. The Government had blundered by not bringing the Bill down two or three months ago in order to educate the people so that they would not become a prey to ardent party advocates. The legislation proposed was a genuine attempt to keep a promise made to the men, who would not be allowed to come back from overseas to be victims of inflated land values. He suggested that the Government should treat sympathetically suggestions in committee for the improvement of the Bill.