The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1914. SOME TORY GUILE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8738, 21 May 1914, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, MAY 21, 1914. SOME TORY GUILE

The squatters’ organ is genuinely alarmed at the intention of Sir Joseph Ward, a’lien ho is returned to power at tho coming general election, to make a fresh assault upon the monopolisation of New Zealand by a comparatively few wealthy landholders. We are not surprised that our contemporary is dismayed. It is owned and controlled by a handful of opulent squatters. It was brought into existence for the purpose of protecting their interests as against those of the multitude of landless people who are steadily but inexorably being pressed from tho countryside into the cities. Tho squatters’ organ is only 'carrying out the intention and the will of its masters in bitterly opposing the Liberal party—tho only party in any country which has ever attacked privilege and monopoly. But tho game must not be played too openly. There must ho strategy and guile, and while every effort has to be put forward to bolster Toryism, ineffectively disguised as “Reform,” and to traduce every public man who will not join the party of pledge-breakers, it has to bo carried out as cunningly as the brains available will permit. Thus, in its latest contribution of abuse of Sir Joseph Ward, the advocate of squatterdom tries to make capital by putting forward the hypocritical plea that it is really the Liberals, and not the Massoyites, who are the friends and supporters of land monopoly. An endeavour is made to show that the party that repealed tho property tax and inaugurated the land tax, that established the principle of compulsory purchase, that settled tho Crown estate with an army of tenants, that provided cheap' money for struggling settlers, that multiplied, the number of small settlors over and over .again and made thousands of poor men wealthy—it is sought to be imposed upon tho public that this party, the Liberal party of which Sir Joseph Ward is the honoured and distinguished leader, is really responsible for and favourable to the monopoly of tho earth’s surface, which is without question the greatest evil in New Zealand to-day. And it is contended that tho Tory squatter party is the party that wants to see closer settlement! The squatters’ organ wants to impose upon its readers tho fiction that those who shouted “Confiscation” in a loud voice when tho land tax was passed, who cried “Socialism” when the Government was authorised to take big estates for subdivision, even against the will of their owners, who denounced' all the progressive legislation of twenty-ono years as tho offspring of the Seven Devils of Socialism, and whose leader denounced tho great Advances Department as a “State Pawnshop”—that these Tories are the genuine and only friends of close settlement of the land. Really, our contemporary on this occasion has protested tea much; its claim is too flimsy and absurd to be accepted by reasonable people. An argument about which there is, however, some subtlety has been advanced in support of this latest piece of misrepresentation. It is alleged that tho proportion of landless adult men in New Zealand increased from 73 per cent, of the population in Ibill to 77 per cent, in 1011. Assuming this arithmetic to he correct, for the sake of argument, what does tho squatters’ paper mean when it puts these figures forward in condemnation of the Liberals? Is our contemporary prepared to rate the intelligence of its readers so low ns to seriously suggest that there would have been a relatively larger number of landowners or landholders if in tho twenty-one years tho country had boon under Tory rule? Surely not. Had tho Conservatives remained, in office all those years, there would certainly have been no land tax. no compulsory purchase, no State advances. None of the measures that have been taken to correct tho disorders of monopoly would have seen the statutebook. Apart from the land question, too, tho people of to-day would have suffered many disabilities. Among other things, it is a certainty that there would have been no old age pensions, no State enterprises, none

of the numerous beneficial undertakings brought about by the Liberals, ft is impossible to believe other than this, because the whole programme of democratic progress has been carried in the teeth of strenuous Conservative resistance. If the figures quoted concerning the growth of the landless community are correct, it simply shows that the population has grown at a faster rate than that at which land has been made available. But as an immense amount of land has unquestionably been settled by means which met with the constant and vehement disapproval of the Conservatives, the only possible conclusion is that without Liberalism the conditions which iho squatters’ organ now professes to deplore, but which it is really employed to advocate, would have been accentuated exceedingly. IVe believe most sincerely that more use ought to have been made in the past of the graduated tax as an instrument to break down monopoly; but that docs not prevent us from knowing that if the Tories had been in power all along —which, most fortunately for New Zealand, has not been the case —nothing at all w-ould have been done to promote settlement, and the conditions to-day would have been truly deplorable. There is, however, a good time coming for this country when the Masseyites are restored to comparative obscurity. In the meantime we do not fear that many, people will bo deceived by the guile of the squatters organ, which says in effect that if the people want to see monopoly broken down they should keep the monopolists in power.