THE LAND POLICY.

Free Lance, Volume XIV, Issue 692, 4 October 1913, Page 6

THE LAND POLICY.

Ministers, Settlement, and the Big Estates. NOW that, the Government has declared its land policy, it becomes plain to the perception of unbiassed people that, apart from the one matter of the freehold, the polioy of the Government is strikingly akin to the policy of the Government it succeeded. But the new Land Act has a sting in it. It goes a B * 6 P further towards providing that leasehold lands shall be converted to freehold on the basis of the original V n j —which is one of the things that all democratic land reformers most emphatically object to. There is indication, too, that the Government is tempted to try the experiment of extending the limitation of area, hazardous though the experiment may be. \ •** » • In short, the Massey land policy has much* in common with the Ward land pohcy. but it differs strikingly in point of its exceptions. The Ward policy was progressive and infcransigeant; the Massey policy is tentative and apologetic. Evidences multiply that Mr. Massey really haß some sore of vague desire or intention to break iio the large holdings, but is still most anxious and resolved to do it only in the most reasonable 'and gentlemanly way. And, land reform being one of our few live questions, only the future can show how the Prime Minister # is going_ to get out of a dangerous position. With Labour savaee on the one hand, and the land reformers antagonised on the other, the position is at any moment likely to becoome critical.