THE H.B. TRIBUNE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1912. MOSES, MILLS, AND MONOPOLY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 199, 6 August 1912, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1912. MOSES, MILLS, AND MONOPOLY.

Because we quoted from the Divine Commandments, communicated through Moses, which have been generally adopted as some guide for Christian conduct of life. Mr. AV. T. | Mills has tried to compel us to a I broad acceptance of all the Patrii arch’s own dicta. This is a position to which we refuse to accede for there is in those teachings that which present day developments of society have made inapplicable, and. in many instances, revolting. This disclaimer is all the more necessary because ! Mr. Mills, from his stated familiarity - with the Hebrew lexicon claims to (be able to make deductions hidden ; bv our ignorance which compel us to relj' entirely on a mere translation, though macle by the finest scholars of a scholarly time. With this introduction we proceed to comment on some of the more salient points of ’Mr. Mills’ diffuse and somewhat or- ' nate discourse. He quotes with approval land laws instituted by Moses , whereby the individual surrendered t to the State at uniform intervals the Hands occupied by him. and was peri mitted for the purposes of sale to i place upon his interest in the land 1 only such value as was proportionate j to the unexpired term to which he !was entitled. Mr. Mills, however, i failed to support his approval of this i scheme by telling us how far it op--1 crated io induce the people to expend their capital and labour so as !to develop these temporary holdings jto their full productive capacity. I This is an aspect which must for the j welfare of the community be kept '.n I close view, but we fear it is receiv- ! ing scant consideration from Mr. I Mills and his disciples. The freehold : and the freehold only will achieve I this all important end. It will cerI tainly not be attained by any such methods as those we are told were

inaugurated by the Hebrew patriarch even with the addition of compensation for improvements based on an arbitrary official valuation. Mr. Mills persisted in allegations c,f a monopoly of land in New Zealand, but surely he was unfortunate in advancing as parallel ca-e" tb< position of the landless man and that of the bonded slave. The distinction is manifest to but very superficial thought, for the landless man is not precluded from earning in other industry than farming the means necessary to enable him to acquire land, while the shackled slave was afforded no such opportunity of purchasing his freedom. We again assert that there is no monopoly—either in the technical oi the virtual sense of the word —of land in this Dominion, so long as it can be acquired at a reasonable price based upon its productive value, and so long as there is a very substantial area of virgin country available for new settlement. M bile, as previously declared, being quite in sympathy with the movement for establishing on equitable lines the closer settlement of already improved areas, we again assert that the first, paramount and obviously j responsible duty of the State is to j bring into profitable occupation ! those portions of the Dominion that j are now lying waste. IVith the land ! question in the Old Country we have but slight intimacy, yet in brief acquaintance. we have known agricultural land fail to find a purchaser at £2O an acre which two years previously was keenly bid for and knocked down at £42 an acre. This was twenty years ago, it is true, but even to-day. we again assert that there is no monopoly of land in England, and Mr. Mills unconsciously and upin- ; tentionally supports our contention, ‘ for did not he say at Hastings on Sunday, when speaking of the disappointed immigrant, that land could be bought at prices relatively much lower than those ruling here. Had{ Mr. Mills attacked the laws of pri-i mogeniture and entail —at one time but now as much out of j date as some of those instituted by Moses —which serve only to perpetuate the preservation of large areas in the hands of one individual—he | would have appealed to a broader j and more general intelligence. Thej abolition of this law would make fori more equitable distribution of wealth among members of families and as a natural sequence for the breakingj up of large estates, and to this the| attention of British legislators should J be first turned. '