RIGHTS IN PROPERTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25299, 9 August 1943, Page 2

RIGHTS IN PROPERTY

A CHALLENGE TO FREEDOM (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 7. “We are astonished at the temerity of the Minister of Lands, Mr J. G. Barclay, in claiming the assured support of the Chambers of Commerce for the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Bill,” says a statement issued to-day by the Associated Chambers, “It is true that chambers of commerce have urged on the Government the necessity for making early provision for the economic settlement of returned soldiers on the land, and in so far as the Bill or any other Bill that may be introduced by the Government promises to facilitate the settlement of returned soldiers on the land on terms that give such soldiers an assured opportunity of success, and on terms fair and equitable to those landowners whose property may be acquired by the Government for the purpose, it will have the wholehearted support not only of the chambers of commerce, but of all rightminded citizens, even if one effect of such a Bill may be to throw some added burden on the taxpayers. “ The Bill introduced, however, apart altogether from its provisions for soldier settlement, of which provisions we have not sufficient knowledge yet either to support or criticise, uses the public demand for soldier settlement to cloak an attempt on the part of the Government to promote its policy of land nationalisation. As distinct from the question of soldier settlement, it places further restrictions on the rights and liberties of every citizen who has sufficient stake in the country to have an interest in the ownership of freehold or leasehold property. It proposes to set up still another system of amateur courts and committees of its own nomination with exceptional power?, and also to deny all landholders any freedom at all in dealing with their own property, and even deny them access to the highest courts of the land in seeking justice. “Indeed,” the statement concludes, “ the Bill .proposes to set up in this country a system that outrages all the principles which the free citizens of the country are at present defending in the greatest war of all times. The Minister can expect for the unjust sections of the Bill the opposition they deserve from the freedom-loving citizens of the Dominion.”