POLITICS IN BRITAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19218, 6 January 1926, Page 9

POLITICS IN BRITAIN.

aspirations of liberals. A COALITION WITH LABOUR. MR. LLOYD GEORGE'S POSITION. A POSSIBLE CENTRE PARTY. By Telegraph—Drews Association—Copyright. (Received 9.20 p.m.) A. and N.Z. ' LONDON. Jan. 5. The future of the political parties has lately been tho subject of some speenla- ! tion. Hie talk about "Baldwin must I go has fizzled ont, but it is recognised j that the Coal Commission's report and j the action to be taken in regard to it may create a situation of difficulty with some of the Government's sunporters. The Nation and the Daily News continue to discuss the question of co-opera-tion between the Liberal and Labour Parties based on a truce in the constituencies and possibly proportionate representation in the Cabinet. The Daily News says that it is incredible to think that the parties will continue to indulge in futile internecine bickerings on questions not of principle but of personality. The Daily Herald, the official Labour organ, however, declares that a LiberalLabour coalition is out of the question. The slightest readiness to even discuss it would be enough to canse a split in the Labour movement politically. The Daily Telegraph's Parliamentary correspondent points out that Mr. Lloyd George is installing himself in new offices for the purpose of directing the propaganda of tho new Land and Nation League, It predicts that sooner or later he will cnt himself adrift from the official Liberal Party, and that he may eventually attempt to form a centre party. I In tho meantime he is devoting all his energies to his land campaign. In opening his Liberal land campaign, in a speech at Exeter in September last. Mr. Lloyd George said that an unofficial committee of inquiry, over which he presided and which had been sitting for two years, had concluded that it was useless to attempt to develop agriculture as long as the existing system of agricultural tenure was preserved. Landlordism had broken down, and it was proposed that the State should resume the ownership of the land for the purpose of giving the cultivator the necessary security. The landlord should be compensated on the basis of tho present building value by annual payments. There should be State credit anil State-guaranteed security. Tho landlords should be fairly compensated, not according to a monopoly value. They should get the same net income as they now enjoyed. British agriculture was at present under-capitalised, and therefore State credit was essential. Tn the place of the landlord and tenant svstem a new form of land tenure, said Mr. Lloyd George, called cultivating tenure, should he established. The only title to use land for agriculture should be the ability to use it well. Indolent and inefficient cultivators could not bo permitted to entrench themselves on the land. Small holdings must he encouraged, and every labourer should receive half an acre of land.