SMALL FARMS BILL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 300, 18 November 1940, Page 6

SMALL FARMS BILL.

The alertness of the farmingcommunity of the Dominion to the necessity to protect their own inalienable rights has become obvious from the spirited protests aroused by the Small Farms Amendment Bill, which is to come before the House of Representatives when it reassembles on November 26. If the meeting at Feilding is any criterion —and it would appear that the entire rural community views the matter in-the same serious light—then the Government must feel constrained to reconsider the dissatisfaction, not to mention hardship, that would arise from the passing of the measure. On more than half a dozen principal points the farmers feel that the Bill trespasses altogether unfairly upon the right of private ownership ' of land and there is very real concern that it merely masks another step in the progress to complete socialisation. The Bill purports to amend the Small Farms Act, 1932-33, but that was, in reality, the Small Farms (Relief of Unemployment) Act, the name of which explains its object. The radical difference between the Act and the present Bill is that the former provided for the purchase or lease of private land by negotiation, or for the resumption of Crown land already held under lease or license, but the Bill declares that the Government “may take anv land” by compulsory acquisition. Not only so, but the landowner is deprived of all his present safeguards. In the new Bill there is no provision under which the landowner is enabled to retain any specific portion of his property—it would appear that his entire farm may be “taken” if the Government so desires. He may offer “any well-o-rounded objection” but not to a tribunal or a Judge of the Supreme Court, but to the Minister —and -when the matter of compensation arises not a Judge, but a Magistrate is entitled to effect a “settlement. In this latter connection the Court is to determine for the purposes of the claim the amount the land might be expected to realise “if offered for sale wholly for cash” —an uncommon and highly speculative basis indeed. The present Bill is an altogether misleading measure and it is well that the Government has been forced to hold its hand so far. If it were to go on the Statute Book in its present form the security of farming would be completely undermined, and that confidence which is so essential to-day could not but be sadly impaired. The aim of the Government in securing land for the settlement of returned soldiers few will dispute, but the method provided in the Bill as at present framed is too suggestive of thoroughgoing Socialism in disguise to be in the least degree palatable to that section of the community most concerned. The Government would be well advised to eliminate the obnoxious provisions.