THE WORKER’S COTTAGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18721, 27 November 1922, Page 6

THE WORKER’S COTTAGE.

Some of the Labour candidates seem to be imperfectly 'acquainted with the details of the policy to which they are pledged. The objective, which is that the means of production, distribution, and exchange shall be socialised, may be glossed over by them as something that docs not embody a political proposal so much as it represents an ideal. But it is an ideal with which the proposals contained in the party’s platform are made to harmonise as far as possible. The objective contemplates the extinction of all rights of private ownership. In conformity with this objective, the land policy of the party is directed to achieve the extinction of all rights of private ownership in laud. It is an undiscriminating policy. It does not distinguish between broad acres in the country and humble houses in the town. Apparently, however, there are Labour candidates who will not admit this. Among them is Mr J. W. Munro, who is very indignant at the suggestion that the party’s policy, if carried into effect, would dispossess the working man of the home which ho has acquired by his industry and thrift. “Lady canvassers,” Mr Munro complained on Friday night last, “ were- going round saying that the Labour Party would take away the working man’s cottage.” When he declared in round terms that the statement was “a lie,” he was applauded by those in his audience who are ignorant of the Labour Party’s proposals. The test of whether the statement is “a lie” or not is provided in a reference to the party’s platform. In that platform will he found the following proposals as a part of the party’s land policy:

1. State valuation of all privatelyowned land, such valuation to remain on record as the measure of the present land holder’s interest in land.

2. That privately-owned land shall not bo sold or transferred except to the Ptate. 3. The owner shall have the right to surrender his land on the valuation set out in sub-clause 1.

It is necessary only to read carefully the clause relative to the sale or transfer—not merely, it . will be observed, tire sale but also the transfer—of privately-owned land in order to see that the Labour Party’s policy constitutes an attack of the most direct kind upon all rights of ownership in land. It is clear from It that, if this policy were translated into law, the working man wjro possesses a cottage would be prohibited from bequeathing it to his wife or to any member of his family: At his death the State would step in and take over the property at a value which would be fixed by.it and which might he greatly below its real value. The proposal admits of only one construction, and that is the construction placed upon it by the “ lady lanvassers,” whom Mr Muuro charges with having, to put it mildly, been guilty of misrepresentation,