THE LAND QUESTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17697, 25 January 1918, Page 3

THE LAND QUESTION.

EVILS OF REAGGREGATION

A ONE-MAN-ONE-FARM LAW ADVOCATED.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I have been greatly interested in your able leaders, as well as in the coiTospondence dealing with the land question appearing in your columns recently, land with your permission I would like to add a few words to tho discussion. First of all, let mo ask of what use is it for Canterbury to demand further settlement when we cannot hold what we already have, and. our rural population, especially the adult male and juvenile portions, shows a steady decrease ? What would wo think of Sir Douglas Haig if, instead of consolidating his gains as he won them, he endeavoured to secure more and lost even what he had already won at such cost? The degree of settlement which wo possess in Canterbury as tho fruit of long years of agitation and hard work by our public men and prominent citizens, and we owe it as a sacred duty to tho pioneers, the present generations and to posterity to hold inviolate what has been so hardly won. To ray mind there is only one way to do this, and that is by passing a one-rann-one-noldiug law which, under com monsense administration, would ensure every reasonable gain in settlement, whether private or public, being maintained, would prevent reaggregation and speculation, .and bring laud values back to a fair thing. I feel certain that with such an Act on the Statute Book, the now almost obsolete Lands for Settlement Act, which at present is not only failing to maintain our rural population but is one cause of the present undue inflation of land values, could be repealed and borrowing stopped for this purpose, as private subdivisions, aided by a graduated land tax and the knowledge that the. State was no longer a possible buyer at a big price, would keep the market supplied, especially as the laud shark and speculator would no longer ho competing against the bona fide -settler. I am aware, sir, that you are wholly in favour of increased taxation as a means of combating the present evils, but this remedy seems so inadequate and so unlikely of realisation to me, that I think to pursue it for the object named is merely to follow a red herring scent. If I, as a farmer, have bought a freehold property representing a large unimproved value, I am not going to sit down quietly and see what I have honestly paid for filched from me by tho State by means of penal and confiscatory taxation, while on the other hand the increasing isolation of families in the country owing to rcaggrega- j

tion is one of our greatest drawbacks. Most of us would heartily welcome any fair and reasonable remedy to cope with the evil, but in asking us to accept your taxation proposals you place us between two evils of which reaggregation appears to be the lesser. Not only is a penal or confiscatory tax opposed to all the canons of just taxation, but in actual practice in the Old Country heavy land taxes have quite failed to secure the sub-division of existing large estates or prevent tho formation of fresh ones. Holdings of from one to one hundred acres are most important if the most is to be made from the soil and the more intensive forms of farming arq to be encouraged, thus enabling the man of limited means to get a footing on the land, and yet it is just such holdings which according to the latest official figures are most rapidly disappearing. Taking the whole Dominion there existed in 1908 88,749 holdings of from one to ten acres, hut by 1911 the number had decreased 7352, and stood rt 81,397. This, sir, is a more serious matter than the joining of a number of large holdings during the same time. Mjght I ask how any land tax, however severe, or limitation of area scheme, however drastic, is going to preserve holdings like these from the monopolist ? I know that it will he said that land may become so valuable that it would not pay a large owner to keep it from intensive farmers who would he prepared to pay high prices for it, and that Denmark is a land of small holdings although she has no onc-nian-one-hold-ing law in operation: hut experience in tho Old Country has proved the contrary, and ns a descendant of the old pioneers and an inheritor of their ideals I would say, God forbid that New Zealand should ever reach tho stage that Denmark has, where a farmer’s sole return from his cows is frequently the manure, tho whole of the milk," cream, butter and other produce having been absorbed in the payment of rent and interest charges. I onoe asked an old Dane what, was the national game of his country and was assured that “there was no national game—it was all bal'd work. Now, sir, there are not wanting evidences in this young country, more especially in parts- of Taranaki, that men with a large love of the land but a small hank balance are prepared to pay outrageous prices to monopolists in return for “ easy ” terms and so bind themselves and families in a cruel and intolerable bondage entailing sc veto mental as well as physical strain, with in numerous cases only failure as the final reward for their efforts. It appears to me that the mistake is generally made of assuming that taxation is the first consideration when dealing with the land question, production coming second in importance, but to my mind a numerous, healthy, prosperous and contented peasantry should be the first consideration, production coming next and then taxation, for it was never truer than it is to-day that ‘ “ 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, AYhere wealth accumulates and men decay.” As farming pays better to-day than ever before in the history of the Dominion, that is, as long as the farmer isn't overburdened with rent and interest. charges, there would have been none of the present, difficulty in kec]>ing the country schools open or in growing sufficient wheat for our own repiirements if there had been no re- I

aggregation of small holdings going on. The Rev Mr Lawry, in a recent letter, stated that reaggregation is less rife in the North Island, as the land there requires more intensive working than here, hut I can assure him that he is mistaken and that many North Island districts are suffering from the same blighting influence that Canterbury is. On the other hand, large areas of hush land are being opened for selection, and this keeps the population on the increase at present; hut when the North has reached Canterbury’s stage of settlement it is hound to suffer to a like extent. Thanking you in anticipation,—l am, etc., RUSTICUS