THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1948. THE LAW AND THE LAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26915, 29 October 1948, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1948. THE LAW AND THE LAND

From all over the country protests are being heard from farmers against the provisions of the Land Valuation Court Bill. That these protests, when they reach the Government, will fall on deaf ears there can be little doubt, for it is historically a .prerequisite of autocratic government that the peasantry should be subjugated, and the farmers of New Zealand will undoubtedly be the first to suffer the consequences of the passing of this iniquitous legislation. Others, too, will suffer. Every citizen who has striven to obtain security for himself and his family through the ownership of property, however small, will be required to accept a system of valuation conceived and administered by the State, and the right of appeal will be denied except to an instrument of State policy. The possibility of abuse and discrimination in the application of the provisions of the Bill is too apparent to be overlooked, and in the absence of any right of appeal to the highest court of justice the powers given to bureaucracy to impose a deliberate policy of complete socialisation of the land assume dominating and sinister- proportions. In one instance only—that of the Judge of the Land Valuation Court—is any preliminary qualification required of the persons who, at the State’s sole discretion, will be appointed to the Land Valuation Court or the Land Valuation Committees.

This Bill is the weapon which has been forged by the Government of a political party pledged to the destruction of private property—and, as an inescapable corollary, the enslavement of every worker to the State. It is the weapon which the Government (with the assistance of its Maori members) representing, in the main, constituents whose lands will be exempt from ,the operation of the Act —intends to wield against property owners large and small by fixing valuations not in accordance with any economic law but solely with a view to eventual acquisition by the State. At least, that is the interpretation that can justifiably be drawn, and it is the meaning that the farming community. has been quick to read in the wording of the Bill. The alarm that is being expressed by their leaders from one end of the country to the other is indicative of a growing determination tQ resist to tjje utmost any further encroachment on their hardearned liberties. This mood has been engendered by the fear that the restrictions imposed by the Bill will prove but the forerunner of even more drastic legislation. Among the farming community there is no more faith in the promises of the present administration, for almost every promise has been found to contain a concealed threat. If the protestations of members of the Cabinet were sincere when the issue of nationalisation was raised in the House the Government can give evidence of its good faith by withdrawing the Bill and writing into it the legal safeguards that have been demanded. Promises alone are not enough, and promises broken can lead to serious trouble indeed.