SHORTAGE OF LAND

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8609, 20 December 1913, Page 4

SHORTAGE OF LAND

At a ballot conducted, at the Wellington Lands Office on Thursday there were one hundred and fifty-one applications and only seven sections. We invite the attention of the Hon. W. r. Massey to this, and venture to ask what has become of his pledge to provide land for the people. Wo do not mean to suggest that his Government has been long enough in office to satisfy the demand for land, or even to make a very great impression upon this great and urgent problem. But it is beyond doubt that the land shortage is more acute than ever, and will become still more so with the steady growth of the population. This is unquestionably a prominent factor in promoting industrial unrest, for it congregates into the towns and drives into competition one against the other many thousands of people who under other and saner conditions would bo occupying and producing wealth from the country lands of the Dominion. Where, then, wo ask, are there any in. dications that the Government understands the situation or is doing anything to meet requirements? Two long sessions of Parliament have yielded ponderous Laud Acts, it is true, but they are mainly concerned in distributing cheap freeholds to persons already occupying land and in providing elaborate machinery that is not required giving the Government power to compulsorily purchase estates, if it should so desire, after several years of make-believe in the shape of official circumlocution Tbo Government has provided no legislation that will overcome the land famine that is represented in a hundred and fifty-one applications for seven sections. The Government has done nothing because there is only one way to meet the difficulty, and that way no Tory party can consider. The unimproved value of land in New Zealand outside of boroughs and town districts last year was £152,273,929; the total land tax was but £728,636, and the graduated tax amounted to the paltry sum of £251,975. The figures speak for themselves. They show that a largo increase in the graduated schedule is the only effective remedy for land monopoly. But the Tories will not see this. Mr Massey seeks to get over tho difficulty by re-purcbase, but the quantity of land that this country will bo able to buy, at present and future prices, will no more provide sufficient land to satisfy the legitimate demand than the warship Bristol, when we have built her, will be able to protect our trade routes.