THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1905. THE LAND QUESTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12955, 26 August 1905, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, AUGUST 26, 1905. THE LAND QUESTION.

This Government has deliberately adopted the extraordinary course of placing itself on record as being without a policy upon the most important of all domestic questions, that of land tenure. It does not care what is done so long as its own tenure of office is not disturbed; it abandons the task of leading Parliament, the duty of standing or falling by its own definite legislative proposals ; it only asks to be < left in charge of administration, and to be allowed to go on exercising power. This is an entirely new development even in our colonial politics, and one which must be quite incomprehensible to those who are accustomed only to British constitutional procedure. In the Imperial Parliament, considerable criticism has been levelled at the attitude of Mr. Balfour to the fiscal question, particularly at his allowing " fiscal heresies' to be advocated by prominent supporters outside the House without his repudiating them. But to parallel the New Zealand situation, Mr. Balfour would have to bring down a series of fiscal proposals covering every imaginable diversity of opinion; whether there shall be absolute free trade ; whether there shall

be free trade as it is understood and exists ; .whether there shall be some oilier form of free trade ; whether there shall be high protection ; whether there shall be modified protection'; whether there .shall be retaliation; whether there shall be preference ; and so on to the end of the chapter. He would have to wash his hands of the whole problem and tell Parliament to settle it, any way and any how, for it was such a difficult question and so, entangled and the cause of such dissension in his own party that he was really afraid it would fling him out of office if he ventured to take sides. England would immediately have no two opinions upon the conduct of a statesman who thus attempted to reduce constitutional methods to a, burlesque, but here in New Zealand we appear to take Mr. Setldon quite seriously when lie makes his amazing laud tenure propositions, which actually deprive Parliament of any authority over the Cabinet on the question by evading that responsibility for legislative policy which is the key to British constitutional government. It is some consolation In know that as Mr. Seddon concentrates the exhausted strength of his administration upon the mere holding of office, lie only Fosters the growing public indignation at his public works and kindred methods; but this will not compensate in any patriotic mind for the lamentable proof of our political decadence given by these extraordinary land tenure propositions.

From their very nature, it is quite impossible to discuss these propositions without discussing the hind tenure question in its every phase, They are thrown .at the House in order that from among them something may be selected which will serve the Government as a policy and afford the basis/for the construction of a Bill which will not be shipwrecked by a vote of no-confi-dence. This is political topsytiirveydom with a vengeance, unprecedented not merely in this colony, but in the entire history of constitutional government. ft is claimed by Mr. Maasey that the true purpose of the Government is to shelve the land question until next session, and it is obvious that there can be little prospect of such a string of debatable propositions being disposed of during the few weeks of life that remain to the Parliament of 1905. This shelving process was commenced last session, when the Government appointed an utterly unnecessary and extravagantly costly Land Commission to take evidence throughout the colony upon a question with which Parliament and the country were already thoroughly conversant, and upon which the mind of members, as of the community at large, was quite made up. It throws upon the House the responsibility which constitutionally attaches to a Government itself, abnegating responsibility for no other reason than that it intends to cling to office at all costs. The colony is determined to put an end to the mistaken leasehold ing experiments which have led to such universal discontent among our agriculturalists, and have no supporters outside a limited circle of theorists. That the aggregation of estates should be prevented by sufficiently potential and entirely legitimate means, that the country should be protected against financial loss in the optional conversion of perpetual leaseholds into freeholds, and that the vast areas of locked up Native Land should be released on equitable terms and thrown open to settlement in the same manner as Crown Lands, are unwavering contentions of the Freehold Party, and in accord with evident and dominant public opinion. Upon these issues Mr. Massey lias decided to challenge the Government. He has given notice of an amendment in which he raises the issue of Ministerial responsibility and the issue of the freehold. If the Government is not prepared to abandon its leasehold policy if should draft a Bill on the lines recommended by its own Commission and meet its fate. To set up a Commission of the whole House to reconsider the report of the. Land Commission, and thus to ask the House to draft a Bill to suit itself is making constitutional government a mockery.