THE LAND BILL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13856, 20 March 1907, Page 4

THE LAND BILL.

Is the breezy criticism to which, as reported in our columns yesterday, Mr Rutherford, member for Huruinii, has been subjecting the laud proposals of the Government these arc viewed from a somewhat different standpoint from that adopted by Mr Baddie, who commenced last evening a series of addresses on the subject in country towns in Otago. Mr Rutherford and Mr Boddie unite, however, in condemning the effort which the Government purposes making to plane-the'remaining Crown lands in the colony beyond the reach of the freeholder. In this proposal consist?, indeed, the worst feature of a Bill of which very ninny clauses invite- criticism. And it is against it and against the other proposals the Bill makes for preventing the settler in the country from obtaining tho freehold of his land that the feeling of the farming community will, wo believe, bo expressed most emphatically when the Government brings its proposals before Parliament and interest in the whole question is more keenly evinced than it is at present. Mr Rutherford, himself the owner of nearly 30,000 broad acres, is specially interested in the provisions of the Bill that i relate to the limitation of estates. But the exception he takes to these provisions is not because they appear in tho Bill at all, but because ho judges that they are not likely to secure a sufficiently speedy realisation of the lands in excess of the value-limit that is proposed. Mr Rutherford, who has a certain frail reputation as a humourist to sustain, cannot, however, bo serious in suggesting that the owners of the large estates will delay tho disposal of their surplus holdings until the expiry of tho ten years' grace allowed to them by the Bill. As business men they will certainly avoid the mistake of retaining to the last possible moment the land with which they must certainly part. If they nro wiso they will recognise that, though much may happen in ten years, there is no livelihood whatever of tho reversal in that time of tho policy of the Land Bill in respect of the limitation of estates. There may be differences of opinion respecting the best method of giving effect to that policy, but there is practical agreement throughout the greater part of tho colony that the policy itself is necessary. And, realising this, the owners of large estates may be depended upon to feed tho market during tlio currency of the ton years in such a way as to secure that the supply will never exceed the demand, which will undoubtedly be pretty steady, for the freehold land that will be made available for purchase, and as also to avoid the possibility of a glut at the expiry of tho period of grace. Mr Rutherford evidently considers that a heavy increase in the graduated land tax on values over £00,000 would be more effectual than the plan proposed in the Land Bill to burst up the large estates. Now, whatever may be said in favour of a moderate graduated tax, such a tax as he proposes would assuredly be most oppressive upon tho great landed proprietors. It would, indeed, fall so unjustly upon them, sinco it would entail upon them the alternative of submitting to taxation which, as. Mr Rutherford himself say?, would bo penal or el?o of sacrificing; the portions of their hum they could not retain, that the sense of fairness in tho lature would operate tc reject such a proposal. Nor is Mr Rutherford's suggestion that the limitation clause should be made to apply to city as well as to country property at all more practicable. When we know that £200 per foot frontage is commonly paid for choice sites in the business quarters in our cities, and that, as a matter of fact,

as much as £420 per foot frontage was paid last week for a property in Wellington, it will at once be seen that the : effect of the application to urban land of tho limitation proposals of tlio Bill would ho fatal to the commercial development of the business centres of the colony. It is a satisfactory circumstance, that steps are now hoiiig taken to place before the country residents from tl'io public, platform the objections that may be raised against the Government's proposals, especially since, as members of the Ministry have assured us, a determined effort will bo put forward in the coming session to secure the enactment of the Bill. The Minister of Lands may not have been making much headway in his campaign, but ho has too long had the field to himself.