HELPING THE SPECULATOR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18439, 19 June 1920, Page 8

HELPING THE SPECULATOR.

A promising field for the land speculator has now been opened up, according to tho " Hawko's Bay Tribune," at Waikokopu, behind the Mahia Peninsula, on the east coast of the North Island. There is a fine natural harbour at this point, and tho Government intends to build: a branch railway line to it, while a local authority is preparing to spend a quarter of a million in constructing a port. There has been no attempt on tho part of j the Government, so our northern contemporary asserts, to reserve any land in the vicinity in the public interest. Trafficking in sites is already busily proceeding, and it would appear that land speculators are to bo allowed to reap a rich harvest of unearned increment as the result of heavy expenditure by the State and by the people of the district. So far as present prospects go the new port of Waikokopu will have a bright future before it. It is to bo mado capable of berthing ocean liners, and should become eventually quite an important shipping centre. The "Tribune" has beoji urging for months that tho State or the Wairoa Harbour Board should acquire compulsorily tho site of tho proposed town, lay it out on the most modern approved plan, and constitute the area an endowment from which revenue could bo dorived for tho development of the port. This is doubtedly a very sensible and prudent proposal, but it has failed to impress tho Government in the slightest. The Auckland "Star," commenting on the matter, suggests that the Government is afraid of establishing a precedent which it would have to apply whereever it built railways, but it is difficult to believe that tho Government can be afraid of a principle to which it has declared its allegiance in the most definite and unmistakable terms. In the first Financial Statement brought down by the Hon J. Allen (now Sir James Allen), that gentleman declared that the Government was " impressed with the importance of v purchasing land, whether European or Native, in those localities where it is intended to construct railways or where they are already in course of

construction. ... It behoves the State to secure a sufficient area to enable it to properly participate in any increase of values that may arise from public works expenditure. If this is done it may be possible for the profits of such transactions to return to the Government a very large proportion of the expenditure incurred in opening up the country by railways, or even roads." He went on to point out that the sites of Te Kuiti and Taumarunui and other towns in the King Country could have been purchased very cheaply before tho railway came, and added that these lessons would not bo lost sight of by the Government then in power, which intended to see that the rights of the community were provided for and safeguarded. This bold and impressive statement of democratic policy was made on August 12, 1912. We do not know why it should be necessary eight years later to plead with the Government to initiate and carry out its own policy, but it cannot be because Mr Massey and his party are afraid of the principle once so eloquently advocated by ono of their foremost stalwarts. There is yet time for a return to the bravo aspirations and high ideals of the party's first year in office, and we should be the first to applaud any symptom of putting into practice those really democratio measures to which Ministers then gave theoretic approval. There certainly was never a time when tho interests of the community more required safeguarding than at present, but after eight years' negation of the duties which the good Reformers perceived in 1912, we may be pardoned for ceasing to expect from them reform in this direction. They have undoubtedly neglected the public interests at Waikokopu.