BLIND MAN'S BLUFF.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 16074, 31 October 1912, Page 6

BLIND MAN'S BLUFF.

If tho Reform organiser, after all the long years lio says ho has devoted to tho study of the land question, can see no difference between selling lease-in-perpotuity land and renewable lease land or between the taxation of land values and the single tax we have little hope of ever enlightening him. The man who does not want to see is proverbially blind, and wo are afraid this is tho case with Mr Jones. But even if the party organiser has no views of his own ho ought to make himself acquainted with, the views of his employers, before he takes upon - himself to write- to tho newspapers as their representative. Mr Massey knows the difference between a loase-in-perpetuity and a renewable lease and the difference between the taxation of land values and tho single tax well enough, and he will hardly thank Mr Jones for his proffered assistance in confusing the public. It is a delicate task for which our correspondent is quite unfitted and it requires delicate handling. Tho Primo Minister has been careful to differentiate between the two leases in framing his acquisition proposals and he has more than once commended the taxation of land values as a help towards close settlement. Whether the Reformers are sincere or not in their tributes to tho ultimate value of what Mr Jones calls the singlo tax wo are unable to say, but they evidently realise the necessity of making tho people believe there will bo some escape from their “freehold” policy when it begins to bear its inevitable fruits. Tho latest indication of this was provided by the Minister of Internal Affairs in the Legislative Council yesterday afternoon ;

Hon F. H. D. Bell: If the owner said ho would not subdivide, but continued to hold tho land, what followed? The Hon J. E. Jenkinson: That remains to be seen. The Hon F. H. D. Boll: Graduation of course, and graduation to a stage which will compel him upon far worso terms to subdivide and dispose of his land. We do not suppose that Mr Bell is th© most socialistic member of tho Cabinet, but if he Is prepared to carry graduation to a stage at which it will compel tho man who is holding more than his fair 6hare of land to subdivide and dispose of th© excess on “far worse terms” than ho can obtain at present we do not think that on this particular point he will have any occasion to quarrel with Mr Forbes or even with “ Messrs Mills, Fowlds and Co.” Tho party organiser does not appear to have yet grasped the fact that when a combination of fortuitous circumstances placed tho Reformers in office they made up their minds that their best chanco of remaining there lay in looking like Liberals. Mr Jones is not helping them at all in thoir disguise.