LABOUR'S LAND POLICY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19498, 5 June 1925, Page 8

LABOUR'S LAND POLICY.

Mr C. M. Moss, having had “the pleasure,” as he describes it, of being a candidate in the Labour Party’s interest for o"nc of the Dunedin seats at the last general election, and probably being desirous of enjoying a similar “pleasure” at the approaching election, has conceived it to bo his duty to expound the land policy of his party. He is prompted to this by a reference; to the subject in these columns on Saturday last. If Mr Moss were accepted at his own valuation he would have to be acclaimed as a highly superior personage, whose knowledge of the land policy of his party embraces all that there is to be known about it. Patronizingly be advises us not to write about it so as to avoid writing nonsense. Any intelligent person who wanders through the mazes of Mr Moss’s letter to us this morning wall have no difficulty in perceiving who it is that is writing nonsense. For it is perfectly obvious that, although ho has had three years since ho appeared as a candidate for Parliament in which to study this policy, Mr Moss is still as ignorant as ever as to the meaning and intention of it. It is regrettable to have to say this about anyone who would apparently convey the impression that he writes ex cathedra upon Ihe question, but the criticism has been invited by Mr M ess himself. The quotations which he makes this morning from his party’s political 'programme supply the evidence that, despite anything he may say to the contrary, the abolition of the rights of private property and the abolition of the laws of inheritance are among the aims of the party. Mr Moss cites the case of a farmer who bequeathes bis farm property to his son. 11 is sometimes dangerous to illustrate an argument by the citation of a particular case. In this instance Mr Moss erroneously supposes that the Labour land policy would permit the fanner to leave his property by will to his sou. Let him refer to one of the provisions of the policy which he himself quotes: “Privatelyowned land shall not be sold or transferred except to the State.” Under this policy, the land would, on the farmer’s death, have to be transferred to the State. There would be no option in the matter. So would the property of any working man in town who had bought a home out of his earnings have to bo transferred to the State. The land policy of the Labour Party would not allow him to leave this home by will to bis -wife. It is so declared as plainly as it can be declared in black and white in the printed programme of the party. It would bo inconsistent with the objective of the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange if it were not so. But just as Mr Moss does not understand what the land policy of his party means, so also he does not understand what the objective of the party means. It may be unfortunate for Mr Moss that we should have to tell him this. Put ho should not presume to write so authoritatively as lie has done about a matter which he has so completely failed to master.