THE LAND QUESTION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2685, 30 August 1905, Page 6

THE LAND QUESTION.

The infirmity of the Government in respect of the land question has- become positively pathetic. Mr Seddon and his colleagues have expended a good deal of energy during the past few years in talking all round this question, but they have never had the boldness to frame any land policy for themselves and to lay it before the -country with a definite pronouncement that it expressed their views and that they submitted it for acceptance or reaction according as the public regarded it. They have completely belied their reputation of being a strong Government. Their timidity has, in fact, brought them into contempt even among their own friends. The attitude of their leader on the tenure 'question, which is the roobquestion, has been suggestive of nothiug so much as that of Lowell's candidate, immortalised in the Biglow Papers :l: l

My mind's tv fair to lose its balance An' say wich party hez most sense; There may be folks o' greater talenc-a That can't set stiddier on the fence. I'm an eclectic ; ez to rhoobhi' 'Twixti this an' that, I'm plaguy lawth; I leave a side that looks like losin', But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both. Mr Seddon's guiding principle in political life is to join upon any question the side that is the most numerous, and, if possible, to place himself at its head. In respect to the land tenure question, he has found himself in a dilemma. He has been unable to satisfy himself whether the party which supports the concession to the Crown tenant of the option of converting his tenure into a freehold is larger than that which opposes it. It has probably been slowly dawning upon him that the feeling of the country is more favourable to the settlement of the land in farms of

wuifii'ate size in the occujjatiou ot free-

holders than he had supposed. But on the other hand he must'have realised that the classes upon which he has mainly depended for political support are generally opposed to the alienation of the land from the State and that the advocacy by him of the freehold option would involve the abandonment of a principal feature of the policy of Sir John M'Kenzie. In these circumstances Mr Seddon has nervously and ingloriously clung to a rail for the past few years, anxious to descend to the earth but uncertain as to the side upon which descent would be politically the safer. Now, apparently, he lias reconciled himself to the necessity for slipping off the rail, but he has net the courage to decide for himself upon which side he shall alight : he feebly proposes to leave it to Parliament to settle that point for him. Mr Seddon has applied a metaphor of his own to the situation as it has affected himself. He has represented himself as having his back to the door on the land question. With a good deal of truth Mr Laurenson observed at the meeting which he recently addressed in Dunedin that nobody has yet been able to discover upon which side of the door the Premier stood. But it is now unnecessary to pursue any further inquiry on that point, for Mr- Seddon has relinquished his Cerberean role : the door has been flung open to admit of a contest, of which one ' of the conditions shall be that title Premier shall appropriate the laurels that belong to the successful combatant. The position is novel, but it 'exhibits the Government in a very humiliating light. No more lamentable display of the lack of a sense of responsibility on the part of the leader of a ruling political party has ever been witnessed than that which is involved in the determination of the Government to invite the House to formulate a policy for it : for that is really the effect of the proposals Mr Sadden is to submit next week. The House is to be asked to resolve itself into committee for the consideration of various points, which are to be brought before it not in the form of propositions so much as in the form of questions, and upon its decisions on these points the Government will construct p Land Bill. The proper course for thf> House to adopt is to refuse to permit the Government to divest itself of its responsibility and to reject Mr Seddon's remarkable proposal. We have no hope, however, that the members will pursue such a dignified course as that. The Premier will, no doubt, carry his resolution, with the result that there will probably be a prolonged wrangle in committee over the questions upon which the Ministry has an unformed mind. Upon the tenure question, upon which the Ministerialists will claim a free hand, there will be a distinct majority, we take it, in favour of the freehold, and the sequel will be that Mr Seddon will be found at the general elections loudly declaiming in favour of that system. The prospect of the satisfactory spectacle which will thug be afforded us does not blind u=, however, to a realisation of the complete and melancholy disregard for its responsibility which marks the present proposals of the Government. They involve a frank admission of impotence on the part of Ministers. They involve, moreover, a frank admission that the large sum expended during the recess upon the Land Com mission, which was to provide the Government with the material that would enable ifc to frame its land legislation, was utterly wasted.