PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20931, 22 January 1930, Page 8

PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF LAND.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib, — " Queer Fellow,” in his last letter, does not appear to me to distinguish between what I contend ought to be, might be, and could be—between Jhe ideal and the real. He asbs: “Wfl I see that the platform pledge of the Labour Party is altered so as to provide for the taking °f the land, etc.? ” That is entirely in the hands of the conference, and as the objective of the party provides the ideal,' which is the motive or driving power to action—namely, the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange—the methods for attainment are primarily the conquest of power, national and local, I nowhere wrote that I reckoned a man should privately own a quarter-acre section on which to build a house. I suppose “Queer Fellow” took this from my personal statement that I both own property under a freehold title and property under a leasehold title—from the Otago Harbour Board. Personally, however, I shall be quite agreeable to hand over "all” my possessions “ free when the people decree that “ all ” will be provided for in a material form; and what does anyone need more? A person needs only one h°use, one meal at a time, sufficient clothes to keep oneself warm and decent, a certain amount of recreation, etc., and time and opportunity to pursue some hobby. AH this would not cost a great deal, but it is essential before we can say wo live at all in accordance with the stage which civilisation has reached. That is what ought to be; but what have we? We have want and destitution on the one hand and extravagance and luxury on the other. Then, again, your correspondent seems to see some conflict in my former statements, wherein I said that if the land itself could not be justly possessed privately, then it also followed that the possessor could not claim possession to its products. Further. I said in reply to Mr Sivertsen that I did not deny a person’s right to what he produced. Now these two paragraphs are in a different’ category. The first claims what ought to prevail. The. second was a reply to what is and prevails to-day. Let me quote what I wrote: “I do not deny the person's right to what he produces. It is because he does not get it to-day that I deny the right of the private ownership of the land; but because the producer has to give up a certain portion of his product, in the form of rent, to a nonproducer and idler, who toils not neither does he spin, but consumes a portion of someone ease's product, and that no mean amount cither. Does anvone believe our millionaires produced all they claim to control to-day? These huge private accumulations are the result of unpaid labour-power, usually called surplus value, and arc used to exploit the non-owners further. Two factors are required to produce wealth—land (the natural or raw material) and human labour. I say that the laud which is the free gift of Nature or God should be owned by all. used by all in the interests of all. Therefore, it follows, surely, that all wealth is the result of human labour applied to the land, the whole product should be distributed in accordance with the people’s needs, no one going short of the essentials, and no one enjoying any luxury till all essentials were first satisfied.” If all who produced to-day got “all” they produced, then it would logically follow that the non-producer would starve, but it is the other way around in cur .present-day society. The nonproducer has the fine mansion and country and seaside residence, motor car, etc., etc. The producer has the bare essentials, usually of the meanest, and luxuries of the cheapest. Is this not so? Can anyone deny it? Then how is it that the producers got the least and have the spectre of unemployment periodically hanging over their heads, and the nonprodupers have the most and best and are never in any doubt of the future, etc.? There surely can only be one answer, that the land and all its products and mechanised instruments are privately owned and controlled for profit and dividends by the few, and that the many who operate them and arc the non-owners are dependent on the few for the privilege of living on the earth at all and on their terms also. In answer to your correspondent’s question what terms 1 and the socialists will offer to a man to get. a privately-owned home, then, if he means under present conditions, I can do no better than refer him to the party’s platform under the heading “ land.” In reference to acquiring a home under the Government's system, 1 mentioned £IOOO as the price, and your correspondent says a man should have a home according to his means. Just so, and as his means are not sufficient even to pay his ordinary domestic expenses, he has nothing for a home under any scheme, and is at the mercy of the non-producers who deal in that line. “ The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof ” has been altered to “ The earth is the landlord’s, etc.” This we are determined to have altered,—l am. etc., P. Neilso^. January 10.