THE The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1906. THE LAND BILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13306, 12 October 1906, Page 4

THE The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1906. THE LAND BILL.

We most heartily approve the decision of the Ministry not to press the Land Bill upon the House during the present session. This is the course which we have urged upon Sir Joseph Ward from the first, for it has been evident to all independent colonists that it would be utterly unreasonable to make sweeping and revolutionary changes in the land laws before it was possible for the proposals to be duly considered and discussed, not only within the House, but throughout the country. That this objection expressed the general feeling of the colony is admitted by the Premier, who stated yesterday, to the House of .Representatives, " that members who favoured the Bill " thought it best to consult their constituents and let the Bill be considered during the recess by the country." We do not suppose that Sir Joseph Ward is in his-heart averse to this step, for even if. he could have forced the Bill through Parliament by a prolonged session—which is more than doubtful in the light of his own statement —it would be an unfortunate commencement for his Premiership to have thus violated the unwritten code by which all constitutional government is itself governed. But, however that may be, the colony has been relieved from the immediate danger of having imposed upon it a Land Act which its very supporters do not appear to understand and which is so novel and so intricate that it has to be most carefully studied before its meaning can be even approximately realised. Mr. McNab is a lawyer, and therefore should be a much better draughtsman than Mr. Duncan, whose portfolio he took. But there is an old saying that lawyers should never make their own wills, these being almost always open to diverse construction and consequent litigation ; and it may be that the old saying may be applied to Bills as to wills. In any ease, the Land Bili has so far had to be regarded as meaning what Mr. McNab and the Premier tells us it means, which is exceedingly unsatisfactory and not conducive to .popular contentment. During the recess it will be sifted out, analysed, criticised, and understood, which being done, members will obtain a clear idea as to what their constituents think. It is noticeable that there is a growing feeling in the House that the opinion of constituents is worth consideration. Which means, plainly, that our members realise that the epoch of the mere party nominee has passed and that at the next election very short shrift is likely to be given to those who have misused their stewardship. , Sir Joseph Ward expresses himself as confident that when the country understands the Land Bill the country will endorse it, and is emphatic in his announcement that the Government is not relinquishing their intention to put it upon the Statute Book. That is the proper spirit for a party leader to display under the circumstances. But we are much more confident that when the country has considered the Bill and when members have made themselves acquainted with the feeling of their constituents that it will be quite impossible to secure a majority in the House for the Bill as it stands. For the doubt in the minds of members '"who favoured the Bill," which has convinced Sir Joseph of the wisdom of adjourning the matter until the session of 1907, is due to the first ripple of the great wave of antagonism which is arising in agricultural New Zealand. What may happen to the Bill if trenchantly amended is another matter, but the Bill as it stands is impossible. We will tell Sir Joseph why, in order that,he may ruminate over the point during recess—though it can hardly be unrealised by him now, for he is by no means a reckless and thoughtless statesman. The Bill purports to conciliate two absolutely antagonistic principles, those of leasehold and freehold. The true freeholder can agree with limitation because he is of all men the one who realises the evil of great estates, whether they be Crown or private, and the undesirability of landlordism whether it be Crown, Maori, or Pakeha, But the freeholder demands that every man who farms the land shall have the hope of making that land his own. A lease may do well enough for the man who is going to- run sheep on lightly improved grass lands, and who when he drives his sheep away leaves little or nothing behind him. But a lease will never satisfy the man who puts the labour of a lifetime into his fields and who sees wherever he turns the work of his own hands. The lease-in-perpetuity was said to be "as good as a freehold," and it has turned out not to be as good. When the agriculturalists rose against* the conditions of lease-in-perpetuity and demanded redress from conditions which irritated ami hampered them without doing the country any good whatever, they were practically promised relief. And in this Land Bill—of whose " liberality " Sir Joseph Ward speaks—the relief they are offered is a paltry 66years lease in place of the 999 years; and the withdrawal of all unsettled Crown Lands from everything but 66 years' leasing, under the thin guise of "endowments." When the agriculturalists really understand this, and they arc beginning to understand this, the saving clause of "limitation" will not sugar the pill. They have asked for bread and they are' ( offered a stone. ,W>en the next

session comes round we shall see how many members from agricultural constituencies will venture to vote for Mr. McNab's Land Bill, as it now stands.