Truth DUBIOUS "DEFORMERS."

NZ Truth, Issue 327, 30 September 1911, Page 4

Truth

DUBIOUS "DEFORMERS."

Published Bveky Saturday MORNING AT LUKE'S LANE (OFF MANNERSSTBEET), W.ELLINGTON, N,Z. TERMS TO SUBSCRIBERS. S. D. Per annum... 13 0 ) Payable half-yearly 6 6 [ m Quarterly... 3 3) advance. SATUBBAY, SEPTEMBER 30. 1911. 1

! ■ — : — • What is Wanted for New Zealand. The Massey mob m the House of Representatives is so unpopular that it is impossible to imagine a lower rung m the ladder of public opinion. Besides the Tory . crowd the bailiff is a welcome visitor. It hits rendered itself disliked m many guises, but has always bobbed up serenely under another name till its inherent awf ulness has served ' to dump it on to the political ash-heap, and the popular indignation . at its boodling tactics has deposited it m the Parliamentary rubbish-box. Now, even its own members and friends disguise the fact that they belong to it, and new bodies representing its monopolistic principles wouldn't be st en dead" m the same back yard with

"The old Conservative Party is dead," said a speaker at the first meeting: of the Canterbury Political "Deform" .League the other night. Then people representing- the same old push put forward the same old vote-catch-ing- programme, and declared themselves the purest of the administratively pure. There was a small attendance m a small hall, which might mean that the Tories are ashamed of the Deform. League, which is so ashamed of Massey's party that it will not identify itself with the Opposition m any way; but the boodling crowd are lew, and they don't turn up to these vulgah political meetings — they motah to the ballot box. The unhappy part o'.' it is that Joes Ward's rail-sittinjj crowd offer so many opportunities for real, honest criticism, and have their political sins counted to them as virlues simply because they don't meet the approval of the Massey derelicts. The Mvisseyiteb arc so little thought of m the country, for instance, that their disapproval of Ward's prolonged loan drunk has converted the awful razzlc into an aei ol" the highest statesmanship, and the Government's fearful oxuvivayanc j into a wise and prudent policy. As Oeorge Wowser Kowlds remarked, the Tory party is not the crowd whom

Ward has to fear, it is the mass of the people whose political opinion is at present inarticulate, and who are merely awaiting a man to give it j dumbfounding expression. Fowlds ! think* ha ; is that man, but he isn't. j • • • ! At the Deform League meet- ', ingr, the speaker was quite correct when he said that iS'ew Zealand's public debt stood at £80,000,000; that the interest on this was equivalent to keeping; 20,000 families of five m the pawnbroker's country at £12 10s per •month, and that New Zealand wars providing- sustenance for 100,000 outsiders. Ward will immediately reply that two- thirds of the debt is inter-est-bearing — is paying for itself — and will then retire \o the interrupted study of his genealogical tree rendered necessary by the bestowal of his borrownetcy, as though the whole matter were settled by this remark. Nevertheless, the fact that a certain portion of the huge total is bearing- interest doesn't alter the circumstance that our railways and other Government enterprises are foreignowned, and New Zealand is drained annually by the absentee monopolist curse. However, the Deform League doesn't propose to give up borrowing; it • won't borrow so much; and when asked by a "candid friend" m the audience how it was going to make provision without taxation for sundry necessary thing's every year which are now met by borrowing-, the League said that money now wasted by the Government would be saved; but when the candid friend pointed out that the cash so obtained would be a mere drop m the bucket beside what was required, the League was cornered and sat down m a state of perspiration. The Tory push, whether m the shape of the National Ass or the Deform League, will not tax themselves, and the fate of the advances to settlers policy, defence, and other schemes can only be surmised if they get into power. Everybody knows this. Ward's people knew it, and as there is apparently no other party on the horizon whom the, Government have to fear, they are playing fast and loose with, the people. It is gratifying- to find the Deform Long-ue, which is comprised primarily cf wool king's, advocating- "a vigorous land settlement policy," because more il:ai\ half of the land m Canterbury is held by a few persons, whose subdivided holdings would people the lonely plains with small settlers and smiling homesteads; but we iind that this vigorous land settlement policy is to be applied only to Native and Crown lands. Ag-ed Bill steward, whose middle name is Jukes, twitted the Government recently upon having" no land policy, and he was right. A vague and distant promise is contained m the Budget to pile a graduated tax on to the holders of over I 100,000 acres, but, as Steward remarked, there would be something definite and decisive m a gi'aduated tax starting* at 20,000 acres; . m fact, it would solve the whole land problem. Monopolists - numbering 235, who held 20,000 acres and over, have their monopolistic fists on the' appallingarea of 13,124,575 acres, or more than a third of the land under occupation m New Zealand. If these owners were subjected to a stiff graduated land tax the rush for the last car to paradise would be as nothing- beside their eagerness to get rid of their superabundance of earth, and there would be no necessity to pinch the miserable remnant left to the native, or to steal the National endowments; and land would be obtainable at a normal rrice instead of at the inflated figure now current, and which is growingwith the profits of the land agents. * • • Wanted — a party with courage to •impose the graduated tax; a party with enough spunk m it to say that the sale of Crown lands must cease; a party with sufficient backbone to stop borrowing-, and pay its way out of taxation; a party that shall resume all lands through which future railways will pass, and pocket the unearned increment banked m the past by the persons who grid- ironed Canterbury, and monopolised the best of the soil m the other provinces. If a sudden stoppag-e of the loan drunk is liable to have harmful effects, the country's loan poison may be administered m homeopathic doses for a while; but the enormous prosperity entailed by the cutting- up of large es-U'.U-s, and the projection of our industries, will so increase the taxable power of the people that we may thereafter cut the London Cohen when we meet him m the street, and east upon Goldstein the glassy eye of :i on- recognition.