THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1891. THE LAND BILL.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1013, 31 July 1891, Page 20

THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1891. THE LAND BILL.

The Land Bill may not be aimed inten tionally at the freehold tenure. Nevertheless, it contains within itself all the means by which a Ministry desiring to nationalise ever} acre of Crown lands remaining unsold may carry that desire into practice. First there are the perpetual lease clauses. So far as we understand them, the effect will he to coni'ert the perpetual lease tenure, so called, into a reality of perpetual lease. The modus operandi is not by extending the term of lease to fifty years, hut by removing all tho conditions under which tho freehold is at present acquired. The Bill provides that applicants shall have the choice of tenure under every notification of lands open for sale. Section 126 confers that privilege upon them, hut Section 127 takes it away at the option of the Government of the day. It declares that “notwithstanding anything in the last preceding section (1) any notification as aforesaid may declare the lands mentioned therein to be open for sale exclusively for cash, or exclusively on deferred payments, or for disposal exclusively on perpetual lease ; (2) No cash sales of rural land shall be made in any financial year exceeding in amount one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’’ This is a wondrous section. It substitutes the option of the Minister for the option of the applicants absolutely ; at the same time it limits the option of the applicants in the matter of cash pur chase, and of the Minister also ; while it leaves quite untrammelled any Minister yvlio may he anxious to apply the prin ciple of nationalisation. As Sir George Grey and others have said the power conferred on the Minister of the day is vastly too great. It is equally clear that an attack on the freehold tenure is expressly favoured. Under this measure the Minister of Lands could to-morrow confine sales entirely to the perpetual lease system as defined under the new provisions. Mr Mackenzie disclaimed any intention of doing anything of the kind. Then why does the Bill convey that power? As it stands, tho Bill is the most insidious and powerful attack on the free hold system, and as such will be scouted, as it deserves, from one end of the country to the other. It is not in this way that so great a change should be effected. These provisions of the Bill are a concealed revolution. Napoleon once said that crowns were never got by petty larceny, but always seized. We could have respected a Radical Government which, relying upon a great majority, had declared openly for radical revolution such as this,even though the country lias given no instruction in that direction to the majority. But for this pilfering policy covered up by a juggle of words, we have nothing but the strongest condemnation. It is not any provision of the present land laws which stands ready to cover any mistake. The present land law (Act of 1885 in this particular not repealed or altered in 1887) limits the amount of land to be annually offered under that system of freehold, disguised under the appearance of perpetual lease, to one third of the total d notified for selection. This measure bstitutes the will of tho Minister, and then in another division makes tho disguised freehold a perpetual leasehold in reality. At the same time it bribes holders and selectors with one per cent interest in favour of this perpetual lease system. What right has the perpetual lease holder to any concession of this kind ? If the fifty years man is only charged 4 per cent, tho deferred payment man ought not to be asked to pay five.

But this new perpetual lease is worthy of the onto ward, unlovely circumstances surrounding its birth. In Ireland at this moment four per cent, or very little more is an annual payment Yvhich in less than fifty years ivill give the tenants of the soil that freehold for which they have such a passion. It is the policy of a Tory Government—a class of government which the New Zealand Liberals are remarkably fond of criticising. Mark the contrast of the land policy of the Liberal Government Yvhich holds the reins of power in Ncyv Zealand. For four per cent, they offer a leasehold, which at the end of fifty years remains the property of tho State. And they take care that every three years the holder of this boon shall

pay a land tax on the unearned increment. Moreover, every obstacle is thrown in the way of his realising his profits and changing his plan of life if he finds that his health requires him to change his country, or his bent is not agriculture. Such is the perpetual lease offered by this Bill—a sham, a delusion ;hy comparison with the agrarian policy of the British Government, a positive oppression of the peoplp. To take away the freehold at all is bad—to take it away for a thing like that is monstrous.

The Bill further destroys the opportunity for employing savings, by destroj'ing the double improvement condition which the present law substitutes for residence. Many ivorking men and small traders have taken advantage of that opportunity. Are they and others to be shut out from the land by a Liberal Government ? Is a man yvlio wants to start liis son in life on a piece of land to be debarred by a Liberal Government by fear of five years’ imprisonment and the gaol brand for the l-est of his natural life ? Then let us consider section 85. We quote it.

It shall not be - lawful for any person to acquire or be the holder under any tenure, other than under Parts V and VI of this Act, in any part of the Colony, of any land whereby, together with any other land lie may be possessed of at the time of making his application, whether such land was acquired by purchase, lease, marriage, or under a settlement or will, or by virtue of an intestacy, he shall become the holder of more than two thousand acres of land in the whole, inclusive of not more than six hundred and forty acres of first class land. That may be read so as to make it penal for men holding more than 2000 acres to hold that excess after the passing of this measure. There is no such intention, it Yvill be said. One obvious reply is to point to the perpetual lease clauses, Yvhich give powers for Yvhich it w r as never intended to apply. Another is that the language is ambiguous. A third is that laYvyers have already interpreted it in the most oppressive sense. As to Yvhat the clause does mean, tho only thing clear about it is that it is fearful and Yvonderfuh

Again, the Homestead clauses are left out. Why ? Perhaps to slioyv that a Liberal Government likes to give the poor stones Yvlien they Yvanfc bread ? Lastly, let, us take the Pastoral clauses, pleasantly satirised by Mr Buckland the other night as the “ one-man-one sheep ” policy. That policy will most certainly prevent the back country of Otago and Canterbury from being taken up under the run clauses. The only people yvlio can rent them are those yvlio hold the lower slopes and faces, Yvhich in Yvinter are free from shoyv, and they are debarred by the one run clause, No. 180. The Crown will be left Yvitlioutrent, between the alternatives of paying heavily for rabbit extermination or leaving the rabbits alone to ruin the rack-rented Crown tenants. This absurdity is an outcome of the old feeling against the “ squat 1 , er,” which we had fondly believed had long ago died ont Yvith the squatter himself. But though the squatter has given place to the tenant paying high rent, the old belief idiotically remains, and here Yve have it cropping up in this Bill.

The Bill bristles with mistakes, stupidities, anachronisms. Everything that is new in it is crude, ill-conceived, irredeemably bad. No committee can hope to make head or tail of it, except by the summary process of excising all the novelties. Then Yvliy have the Bill at all ? Yes ; why, indeed ? The land laws may require reform, but they do not require destruction, simply because ive have a Liberal Government in office. The lands are being very ivell settled under tho present law. The session is far advanced ; many measures will have to bo sacrificed. The Government ivill do well to let this measure be of the number. Why do they not let well alone ? Wo had expected some small reform for more effectually preventing dummy ism, Yvhich has been shown to exist. We never suspected a measure which must stop settlement, harrass cultivators, throw the lands into confusion, and drive the bone and sineYV and tho enterprise to find pastures elseYvliere.