AUSTRALIAN LAND QUESTION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15033, 5 January 1911, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN LAND QUESTION.

A VICTORIAN OPINION.

IFrom Our Own Correspondent.)

AUCKLAND, January 2.

In an interview the Hon. J. Drysdale Brown, Victorian Attorney-general, who is on a visit to Auckland, threw an interesting light upon the land question as affecting Victoria. He stated that the land battle there was waged between those desiring closer settlement and the large landowners. Tile land which was held in large areas was chiefly need for sheep, but it would grow wheat, oats, and barley, and some of it was the finest arable land in the world. An idea ol the results of aggregation might be gained from the fact that in the three counties of Ripon, Hampden, and Grenville, which contained 2$ million acres, there were fewer people than there were 37 years ago. Yet this land was 6'arrounded by railways, and some of it was the finest arable land in the world. Men holding up to 120,000 acres grumbled if the State desired to acquire part of their land at a fair market value, although that value had been to a large extent created by the expenditure of public money. There was a Closer Settlement Act in operation in Victoria, much on the same lines ae in New Zealand, but the difficulty was in arriving at a price. The owner generally asked a price higher than the State was prepared to give, and unless a friendly agreement could be arrived at the matter went before a tribunal consisting of a Supreme Court judge and two arbitrators. Proceedings before them were often very lengthy and expensive, and not infrequently they ended up by splitting the difference. An effort was being made to arrive at a more satisfactory method of fixing the prices. The cost to the State of the present system in one case amounted to 5s an acre an an cetate of 22,000 acres. In speaking on the question of the land tax, Mr Brown explained that there was a Federal land tax, which must be uniform, on the whole of the lands of Australia. In addition, nearly all the States had a land tax of their own. In Victoria the State tax wae a very small one— -Jd in the £ on the unimproved value. This was purely a revenue tax, and under the constitution the Federal tax must be for taxation purposes only. It was claimed, however, that the Federal tax, which went up to 6d per acre, would cause the subdivision of estates.