THE BALLOT IN LAND SELECTION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7930, 13 October 1911, Page 1

THE BALLOT IN LAND SELECTION

(To the Editor "N.Z. Time*.”) Sir,—l notice that Mr A. S. Malcolm, M.l - '., has made au attack on the ballot system in connection with the disposal of laud. I do not know if Mr Malcolm has given any study to the laud administration in Iris own province of Otago, but u he has ho ought to know that when tho ballot was departed from many years ago tuo result was fraught with great disaster to tho settlors!. It 1 mistake not, that departure was made by tho Grey Government at the same timo that they raised land—by an error in drafting the band Bill—from an upset of -Cl 10s to £3 per acre. We had two systems of laud tenure in Otago then —deferred payment and agricultural lease. Both were de cided oy ballot; bat in the case of deterred payment auction was suostituted, and, X think, in the case of agricultural lease, either the bonus system or tender. Xu any case, the deferred payment laud will suliico as au instance. What was the result? Just about that time there a suuden rise in tho price of wheat. A mad rush was made for every section put on tho market. The history of the mad boo;u in which laud at W’aihemo opened at an upset of Jig an aero and run at auction to Jll7 is still well within the average memory. What was the outcome? Prices for wheat fell; disaster came, and ruin stared hundreds of Otago settlers in the face. The late Mr Scobie Mackenzie, i think, brought iu a JRevaluation Bill, and those wno had not become freeholders had the values reduced. Practical experience of a departure from tho ballot very soon led to its reinstate meat. With all its defects it at least possesses this advantage; that it puts the settler on the land on just and equitable terms. Since that period men who had given years of study and men of practical experience—Sir John McKenzie, for instance —have amended and altered the laud laws,, but although Sir John attempted in the Laud for Settlement Act to distinguish between deserving and uon-Uev-ewiug applicants, and Mr Alois'ab endeavoured to give preference to landless men, no one has fouuil a substitute for the ballot, nor do I see how they can. The objections to selection of applicants by land boards is one that will always apply to tho decisions of any tribunal of human beings. Auction would bar tho poor man. and tender would he no better. It therefore behoves Air Malcolm when lie essays to attack the ballot system to show if he has any knowledge of tho disastrous results of a former dejiarture, that he has something better to put in its place. So far us 1 can see more careful selection by land boards is what is wanted, and for that wo must always he more or less at the mercy of fallible bodies. If we had more men on our land boards of tho stamp of your Wellington Commissioner of Lands there would be more careful selectors. —I am, etc., ff J. J. RAMSAY. Duuediu, October 10th. !