THE OAMARU MAIL THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21 1920. THE PUNISHMENT OF THE PEOPLE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14821, 21 October 1920, Page 4

THE OAMARU MAIL THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21 1920. THE PUNISHMENT OF THE PEOPLE.

The electors of the Dominion are paying the penalty, of their narrowness of nolitical vision.'if not downright stupidity, in so dissipating their power at the last general election as to permit a Reform majority to enter the House on a minority' vote in the country. As they were warned what would be the result of splitting their votes between Liberals and Laborites. the punishment is notundeserved. What had gone before when the Reformers held the reins prior to the war should have given them enlightenment as to how the Crown lands would he bartered away and the landgrabbers afforded opportunities to become the possessors of what should be the patrimony of posterity if the Reformers were in power. Had there been an alliance of Liberals and Labor against the common enemy this might have been" avoided. The majority of the electors, and not a minority, would have determined the laud policy of the Dominion, and we would not have been called upon to witness the unholy scramble for the possession of the absolute freehold of the State's landed estate that has been enacted during the current session, and will, we suppose, be continued till the prorogation sends members to their homes. How many proposals have been submitted to the House, under one guise or another, to permit the favored few to acquire the freehold we cannot at the moment say. "We have lost count, and we do not care to hunt up the shocking records to determine the number. What we do know is that they have embraced leases of town lands held under varying conditions, leases of settlement lands granted under different terms, small grazing runs, national endowment lands ' set apart for good specific purposes, some let and some unoccupied, and so on ad infinitum. Where the process of alienation is going to end defies the wib of the most gifted prophet to determine.. The only opinion that we venture to offer upon the point is that it will be continued so long as the present worshippers, of the freehold remain in power and are in a position to gratify the craving of men to own the earth. So much has been done that the cry goes up: What next and what next ? For another two years the dispensers of favors to the few are destined, under ordinary circumstances, to hold- office and power. In that time they can barter away the whole landed estate of the Crown—national endowments, education endowments, pastoral lands; audi all other lands that they can lay their hands upon. We are only at the beginning of-the sacrifice, and we may propare ourselves for more of it in still greater measure.- When the Massey Government originally ordained that holders of settlement lands should have the privilege to acquire the freehold it was promised that the money so obtained by the Department would he used for the purchase of further large estates for subdivision and settlement. How much has heen done in the direction of redeeming that promise? Practically nothing! It was a promise like unto a. piecrust—made to be broken. Tn respect to the national endowment lands now about to he offered up on the altar of the freehold no such promise is proposed to be given. On the contrary, what is proposed to be enacted is that no further endowments shall bo created, thoueh why, in the face of their general attitude in regard to endowments the Government should ask Parliament to inhibit hv Act anything of the kind puzzles the wit. There shall he no more endowments! Verily it is a new and strange form of prohibition —prohibition without the sanction of the people vitally concerned. Provision for education, old age pensions, and other things designed for the future welfare of the whole of the people in the form of permanent endow-

merits is to be made illegal, *-o that tht lund-bhurks may not be debarred iiom gratifying their insatiable appetites to tlie utmost extent that a complaisantGovernment can grant and n. country of somewhat limited area, can provide. And all this is alleged to be done with, a view to promoting settlement- and production. That may be a plausible: pretext calculated to satisfy the easygoing part of the population, but it if notliing"befter ;: tn:iir "ah empty ' pretest destined to fall far short of becoming a tangible reality.