THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1925. THE "USEHOLD” TENURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19617, 22 October 1925, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1925. THE "USEHOLD” TENURE.

Whatever delusively soothing effect the somewhat pitiable wriggles of various humble servitors of the Labour caucus to explain away the unexplainable about the official land policy may have had upon the city working man who has acquired a home of his own, these unlucky victims of a disastrous pronouncement may save their breath as far as the fanners are concerned. We are almost daily treated to the exhibition of panic-stricken signatories of "the platform” frantically struggling to conceal the perfectly obvious meaning of their own principles in order to avoid the defection of disgusted voters. If, after this, working men in this and other cities persist in throwing their homes and hopes into the melting pot at the bidding of their political “bosses,” they can hardly complain afterwards that they have not been warned of the truth. We are afraid there are such working men, and wo are unfeignedly sorry for them. But the one thing certain is that, however that may be, at least there are no such farmers. The home of the city workman is for the most part his home only, and the home of his wife and children. He may he—remarkable as it may seem that he ever should be—content that at his death it should become vested by law in somebody else acting as an official of the State. But the farmers home is not a home solely: it is also the means by which he earns his livelihood. It is the shop which contains the goods in which he deals. Even more, it is the very factory from which those goods, the result of toil in all weathcis and at all hours, are laboriously turned out. In the great majority of cases a large share of the farmer’s working years is spent in making that factory and that shop the means of safely supporting his family after he is gone, and supporting them in manly independence—not in servitude to the Hollands and Jordans aim Savages of the day, with only the vague bait of “an interest” to console them

for the loss of ownership. Every wriggle of the now thoroughly frightened Labour candidates, every new juggle that is tried with the plain words of the official Labour deliverance, every agonised appeal to the intended victims to realise how sweetly sounds the newly-coined “usehold” in the believer's ear, only serves to show that ownership cannot possibly be bequeathed to them if official Labour has its .way. They will be graciously permitted an “interest,” and that is all:

and even that “interest” is not to extend to any increase there may have been in the value of the farm, —all such increases are robberies, and are to be confiscated as such by the State. It is useless for the authors of the policy to shuffle and squirm in the hope of somehow getting through the awkward weeks cf a general election: it is useless even to resort to such’ desperate methods as the sentence upon poor Mr Moss for blundering too close to the actual truth. 'Whatever may be the success of such tactics with tho city worker, the farmer at least cannot afford to be blinded; and he will not he. Mr Holland and his supporters need not reckon that the farmer will be so easily deceived.