N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1887.

New Zealand Mail, 22 April 1887, Page 16

N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, APRIL 22, 1887.

Although there is little probability of the Land Acquisition Bill passing into law daring the coming session, it is tolerably certain to form the subject of some interesting discussion both in Parliament and outside. The Bill itself proves to be by no means the tremendous new departure which “ inspired ” forecasts led us to expect. It was announced as virtually a Land Nationalisation Bill. This is assuredly not borne out by its actual provisions. Briefly, it provides for the expropriation of private lands,when required for settlement, to thevalueofnot more than £50,000 annually; the owners to be compensated on the basis of the last Property tax valuation, also for any special damage caused by the expropriation, and the land to be taken up through. the medium of Settlement Associations, and to be allotted to genuine settlers on the “perpetual-lease” system. Such is a rough sketch of the proposal. The details need not now be entered into. Our object is rather to review the general principle involved, to show that it is not so alarming a Socialistic scheme as it was at first reported, and to point out some of its possible results. A little reflection will make it clear that the salient principle of the Bill is the long recognised one that landed proprietorship is not absolute, but is subject to the public convenience. Private property is never allowed to stand in*the way of railway extension, for instance. The owner must of course be comoensated for the loss of any land taken from him, and for any injury, direct or indirect, done to the remainder. But his ownership of the land itself is subject to the requirements of the public benefit. If his land is needed for a railway line, or for other public purposes, he is compelled to part with it at a fair price ; in other words, it is expropriated. This law prevails in New Zealand as in England, and no process is more common than the taking of land under the Public Works Act for purposes of public utility. The new departure in the Land Acquisition Bill consists in including industrial settlement among these purposes of public utility. Even this is appreciably modified by the restriction which saves the owner’s right in his homestead and the handsome holding of 1000 acres surrounding it. Consequently there is no widespread or oppressive expropriation of private properties. All that is proposed is to take power to resume private lands to the value of not more than £50,000 yearly, if required for genuine settlement. Had there been no limitation, or had this been much wider in its scope, there would undoubtedly have been grave danger in such a scheme, and had the administration of the Act been left to the Government, there might have been offered a perilous premium for corrupt action. But the yearly limitation to £50,000 effectually precludes any very formidable plunging into speculative operations, and the relegation of the administration to existing judicial authorities ought to constitute an efficient check upon improper or corrupt transactions. It will at once be seen that the scheme strays widely from the path laid down by Mr Henry George in his oft-quoted “ Progress ar,d Poverty.” For, whereas he held that landowners were entitled to no compensation at all, because they had so long improperly enjoyed an unjust monopoly of the public lands, the present measure proposes not only to buy the land at its full value, but also to compensate the owner for its loss, beside allowing bim to retain a home stead estate of 1000 acres. This is a

very important difference, and it entirely knocks all Socialistic or Laud Nationalistic elements out of the Bill. In this view we entirely agree with Sir J ulins Vogel, who supports the Bill, though adhering to his formerly expressed opinion that “ Land Nationalisation is unmitigated humbug.” He can do so with consistency, because the present Bill is in no respect a land-nationalis-ing one. It simply says that settlement shall be one of the purposes of public utility for which private lands may be expropriated, and it furnishes the machinery by which this is to be done, the owners to be compensated, and the expropriated land administered. Had* it aimed at extinguishing the freehold tenure altogether, we believe it would have exercised a prejudicial influence on settlement by the most desirable class of settlers —practical farmers from the Mother Country. It is true that they have always been used at Home to hold their farms as tenants, and on a tenure immeasurably inferior in point of eafety and permanence to that which it is proposed to offer them in New Zealand. Still, they will be apt to regard tenancy as tenancy, acd to ignore any mere difference ot detail. Their great and all-absorbing longing, which alone will induce them to take the formidable step of emigration, is to obtain “ a bit of land of their own” —a freehold. Abolish freeholds and you at once destroy one of the most cogent inducements to the most beneficial class of immigration. This Bill does not pretend to do that: it only offers additional facilities for a species of settlement which does not demand large capital, and which leaves the settler s capital free for use in improving and stocking his land, instead of its being mostly absorbed in the purchase of the land. Therefore, if the operation of the measure be strictly limited within the boundaries at present proposed, it ought to. have the effect of adding another inducement to immigration. Among the possible results of such a Bill becoming law, one of the prominent should be the relief of many encumbered estates. Notoriously there are numerous properties in this Colony overwhelmed with mortgages, not only yielding nothing to their owners, but even drawing upon the owners’ other means for payment of interest. The new law would offer to such a very acceptable mode of extrication, while it might also enable mortgagees to realise advantageously upon securities which have long been a source of anxiety and doubtful as to value, yet which cannot be disposed of at present except at a heavy loss. In these cases the scheme would operate beneficially both by relieving mortgagers of an onerous and crushing burden, which has paralysed their energies and drained their resources, and releasing them from a weary servitude ; and by setting free mortgagees’ capital, which has been locked up for an indefinite period in security whose market value could never be relied on. There are hosts of instances within our own knowledge in which the new scheme could be worked to the great advantage alike of landowner, mortgagee, and intending settler. Plenty of landowners possess broad acres which they have no hope of improving, and on which perhaps they would not care to employ capital and labor if they were able to do so, yet which might be most profitably settled by small working farmers. Little difficulty would be: experienced in forming Settlement Associations, as contemplated by the Land Acquisition Bill, for-the purpose of taking over and settling the land hitherto unused. It may be said that these facilities are needless while so much Crown land remains available for settlement. But without now entering into the question how much Crown land really suitable for agricultural settlement does still remain available, it may fairly be pointed out that most of this latter is at a great distance from a market as compared with the majority of private estates, and so is relatively inaccessible. It would therefore be far easier to extend settlement if some of the unused private lands were capable of being compulsorily utilised, and in this respect the Bill seems likely to be a useful measure. So far as it goes it appears capable of being employed as a potent means of facilitating settlement, and of relieving both encumbered landowners and their mortgagees of burdens which have long been grievously irksome. How far the measure may require modification in its details so as to bring it into a shape that will

be acceptable to Parliament and to the country must be considered on another occasion. Meanwhile we cordially recognise that Mr Ballance has devised a measure which possesses large capability of usefulness, and which, if hedged around with adequate safeguards against abuse, may fairly be expected to prove a valuable adjunct to the facilities at present existing for the promotion of industrial settle ment.