THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION REPLIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2744, 17 October 1906, Page 14

THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION REPLIES.

Mr Massey began his reply with a reference to the tone of the Minister's speech. The tone of his speech to-night, he said, was very different from that of his speech on the first occasion w-hen he put his land policy before the House and the country. On that occasion there was an air of confidence and enthusiasm about his speech, but there was no confidence and enthusiasm about him to-night. On the contrary, there was doubt and hesitation. The hon. gentleman to-night was on the defensive, and his speech was partly explanatory and partly apologetic. He reminded him of an advocate fighting for a client whom he knew to be guilty, a client whom he knew deserved "cix months," but whom he would endeavour to 6ave if he possibly could. Better bills than this had been given " six months " by the House, and- even a longer term. The hon. gentleman was not willing that his bill should be so treated if he could aroid it. It might be taken for granted that the measure as introduced embodied the opinions of the Government with regard to the land question. Apart from that, it would be generally admitted, even by those members who supported the bill, that as it was introduced it was one of the crudest and most ill-considered bills that had ever been placed before Parliament. The .committee had done good work in connection with it. It gave a very great deal of time and attention to it, and it amended it considerably in regard to some of its most important details, but the principle of the bill remained the same. The principle of the bill was incapable of improvement, because it was unutterably bad. As to the endowments, he contended they would not be of the slightest benefit to the departments concerned. On the other hand, the setting apart of these areas would be seriously detrimental. He knew, and tho House knew, that the proposal to set apart these lands as an endowment was simply an excuse for making it impossible for the men who -went on to the Crown land to acquire the freehold. The main feature of the bill was contained in clause 3: — "All Crown lands remaining unsold or unselected on the coming into operation of this act (but not including settlement land, or land reserved or set aside as endowments or reserves) are hereby set apart a.s a national endowment for the purposes hereinafter^ mentioned." And then clause 4 said : — " From and after the coming into operation of this act no Crown lands set aside as an endowment under clause 3 of this act shall be selected under Part 111 or Part IV of the pi incipal act on the cash, occupation vith-ripht-of-purchase. or lpase-in-perpetuitv systems." Now. the Minister had a great deal to say with regard to other points in hi 3 proposals, but he had very • h»le to say about thai, the most important point of all. The proposals were 6imply a bribe to the members of the House to do what they knew to be wrong. A? a matter of fact, tho Government was taking up the case of both the leaeeholders and Socialists in the Hous§ god through-

out the country. Regarding the renewable lease, lie asked did the hon. gentleman know that nearly the who'e of the remaining CrQwn lands were second and third class lands, and that wss the ca;e whether they were bush lands or open lands or ewamp lands? And did ho expect " good settlers — men who knew their business and expected to make a success at their calling, to go to this socor-d and third class land. under the conditions proposed, knowing that at the end of (he term of this so-called renewable lease every possible attempt would be made to keep down the \alue of the improvements and to keep up what was called the unimproved value, with the object of getting a good return for tho second term? An Hon. Member : No !

I Mr Massey continued that as the end of the term approached the interest of the settler, instead of increasing in value, as it j would do with better security, would de- ' preciate in value. The principle of this i bill, from whatever point of view you | looked at it, was bad. It was bad from the point of view of the State, because it would stop settlement ; it was bad from the point of view of the settler, because it would take away from him the possibility of independence, which was the strongest inducement to men to go into the wilds ;,n<l j put up with the hardships of pioneer life for j years, perhaps many years. The putting j forward of these proposals had done already i and would do a tremendous amount of j harm to the people of this colony. Mr I M'Nab had stated that he had never heard j a sound proposal put forward with the object of settling the second and third class lands of this colony. He (Mr Massey) had experience of those lands. He had j seen them not only in Auckland, but in j Otago, and other parts of the colony, and j he affirmed that if those lands were going , to be occupied they had to say to the I settlers that as soon as they had fulfilled the requirements of the Land Act with regard to residence and improvements, tho fee simple of the land was theirs. It | would pay to do so, because the best asset of this country was good settlers and producers, and they could not have too many of them. It would Jcertainly pay us better to settle those lands in the way | indioated than to allow them to remain idle and unproductive and be overgrown with noxious weeds, as they would be if the 6© proposals were given effect to or if we did not place more liberal provisions on the Statute Book. The hon. gentleman was new to office. He had admitted he had j not seen much of the waste ; lands of the colony. If he had gone round the colony, if he had s*en the conditions of settlement, the quality of the 6oil in many places, and had noticed the hardships and difficulties the settlers had to put up with he never would have laid these proposals before. I Parliament. He had, however, taken the opposite course* He had rushed in where wiser men feared to tread, and the result was a bill whioh very few would approve of and which within a very few years the hon. gentleman would himself be ashamed of. This measure proposed to abolish the freehold 6o far as Crown lands are concerned. It proposes to abolish the lease in perpetuity, which many people — perhaps misguided people — 6aid was better than the freehold. He had never been an admirer of the lease-in-perpetuity system. He knew the defects full well, but he also knew that it was a much better system than the one that it was now proposed should take its place — the 66 years' renewable lease. As to the £50,000 limit and the return of estates furnished, he believed that many of the people whose names were mentioned were outside the scope of the bill. The proof of that was that there were the names there of people who within the last few years had cut up their properties. Some of them bad actually sold their properties to tho Government. The hon. gentleman would find at the end of 10 years that there would be precious little surplus land available. The provisions of this bill would destroy the value of landed security, and in consequence of that money would be scarcer and dearer to the settlers who had to borrow it. It was a case of much cry and little wool with the hon. gentleman. There would be the freehold for a man with money, but there would be very little land available for the man without capital. The hon. gentleman spoke as if the whole of the surplus land would be available to-morrow, as if it were available now, or would be next week, whereas, as a matter of fact, there would be little or none available for the next 10 years. In this way, in some parts of the colony, such as Auckland and Taranaki, there would be little or no land, because there were practically no large estates there. The hon. gentleman tried to apologise for the fact that the bill, while it applied to lands in the country, did not apply to lands in the city. But it seemed to him that if £50,000 worth of unimproved lami was enough for the man in the country it ought to be enough for the man in the cityAn Hon. Member: Everyone will agree with that. Mr Massey: I am glad to hear my hon. friend on my left say that everyone agrees with that. " My Socialistic fiiends must admit, if the bill pleases them, if it is Socialistic, as I say it is, it is not logical. It seems to mo that if the principle of limitation is right at all. it is right that it should apply all round, and it should apply to the city, and I hope it will apply to the city as well as to the country districts. Mr Massey went on to point out that a man whose estate is over £50.000 unimproved value at the present times goes on fo the excess reduction list -and his excess property must be sold at the end of the 10 years. But tho man whose property is worth, say, £48,000 or £49,000 now, and during the course of the 10 years becomes worth £60,000 or £70,000 or £80,000. was outside (he act. The law could not touch him On the question of one law for the city and another law for the country, he pointed out that the Crown tenants in the cities, the people who occupied or who might occupy workers' homes, had the right to acquire the freehold of their homos, and very property so, but in the case of that section of the community whose position wa<s most analogous to th*> position of those who occupied workers' dwellings— he meant the tenants on tho lands of the country— the same privilege na« denied them, although it was of much more importance in their ca o. Y^vnuee they n-pfrded every encouragement that could be given to make improvements Then it was exceedingly inconsistent that in tho case of Native lands the owners were to be allowed to hold in large blocks of, perhaps, 100,000 acres, in some casee, of really good land, and no attempt was to be made to settle them. He had always thought that the tenure in the O|Q» oi large blocks should depend on ho

u6e macle of the land, more than on the amount of the holding. He would take Ixmgheach Farm by way of illustration. Ixsngbsaoh was originally a 6wamp, but by the application of skilled energy and capital it had been brought to its present state. It was now without exception the best farm in the colony, probably one of the best

farms in the world. It had been of immense value not only to the locality where it was situated and to the thousands of men who at different times have been employed there, . but to the colony as a whole, and yet by the proposals under this full it was proposed to pJace Longbeach in exactly the same position a$ £50,000 •worth of land which in the past had required little or no capital, and on which very little capital had been expended, and •whioh had not contributed to the material wealth of the colony. Such proposals were unfair and inequitable, and would prevent men of ability, such as the proprietor of l»ongbeach. from devoting their skill. capital, and energy- to the development of the agricultural industry, th<? most im portant of all our industries There ■was one point of view from whioh this bill would be simply disastrous, the point of view of the farmers' finances— The accommodation that settlers required occasionally. We had throughout the colony a number of financial institutions, insurance companies, and banks, like the savings banks, whose ■ business it was to lend their surplus capital on the security of country lands. The bill would be a hindrance to that, and he was absolutely certain that its effect would be to make money scarcer and dearer. Lenders would not lend at go narrow a margin ac they had been in the habit of doing. Thoy would require a wider margin, and a higher rate of interest to make up the increa«?d risk they would have to undertake. Coming to the proposal to limit tl.e area of land anyone ra.ght purchase, a man might have £15.000 wcrth of land .and haye 1 £14,000 of mortgage on it, bur the bill applied to him as if he were free and unencumbered. It was quite evident that tho father of this bill was not the father of a family. If he had been a father of a family he would have had moro ronsirloration for tho"»e who obeyed the Divine commandment about multiplying and replenishing 1 the earth. Only a day or two ago he came acioss a gentleman who bad boon up on the East Coa.st looking for land, but as soon as he saw this bill he made up his mind that New Zealand was not the country for him, and ho intended to see what he could do in Australia. He hod not the slightest doubt in his own mind that there were many ruore like him. Ho ventured to say that if it was possible to pet the actual facts they would find that two-thirds of the actual electors of the colony were in favour of the freehold. He said also that 99 out of every 100 settlers in the country were in favour of the freehold. He said, too, because hp had gone r to the matter, that the large majority of the members of this House were pledged to support the freehold. He had hoped that anj Land Bill ■which might bo introduced by the Government would have contained some proposals for giving the :ik-ii «ho lio'fi their land under leas" in porroru.ty at the present time the option of prrnhaic. Thar had only to be expected as tho re=ult of the last elections. But there wa.s vo such option. The Government should have given the membo's of ih" Houso an opportunity of Paying whet'ior the settlers holding iand under leate in perpetuity should have the option of porchaPe. and under what terms. Ho had *.in delighted to notioe the interest taVot is

the bill by the people of the colony, and had been pleaeed to notioe the position taken up by the freeholders, the men who farmed their freehold land. Their position was that the settler should have tho opportunity of converting his leasehold into a freehold. His own policy was staply closer settlement and straight-out freehold. He believed that the State landlordism was the more objectionable of the two forms. He asked the House to look for a moment at what this 66 yeans' lease meant to a settler. A settler toclk up 300 or 100 a«res, and the remaining years of his life in getting rid of the bush, and in bnnsfinjr the land into cultivation. At tl>o ei-d of the fir&t 66 years' term his descendant was in occupation, and his descendant wns faced with this difficulty: Ho had either got to take t-ompe/^ation lor what is called in tbe bill " permanent improvements of a substantial character" or he had to submit to an increase of lent. How was this value to bo arrived at? How was it possible for anyone to get at the value of all the improvements, that had been placed on that section from tho time the first tree was felled until tho end of the term cf the 'ease? It was impossible to estimate the value of improvements 10 or 20 years after they had been made. If that was the case, how much more was it impossible to estimate the value of improvements marie 66 years from tho time tho land had been first taken up. Ho had been somewhat surprised to find that the prevent Minister of Lands had voted for all thoso misnamed Fa>r Rout Bills, which froPi tnno to time had bern introduced in the House — cunningly-de-vised bills to break the contract between the State and the settlor without the settler being aware of it, and so place the pettier at a disadvantage. Notwithstanding the position in which tlw hon. g-nt'eman had como back to the House a f tor the last election, he believed that tin- bill <>\pr^sspd really the mind of the hon. member with regard to the land question. It wa« a positive nmfortuno to the oouniry that it should have as Minister of Lam!s a gentleman holding thcx-e views. It »a^ a misfortune to the country and to the settlors, becaiK-e he had made it clear that he had no hwnpathy with the people and their a-spi rat ions, but simply intended to ut^e them as revenuc-prcducing machines, f'oming to the proposal to allow Crown tenants ho'ding land undor lea^e in perpetuity and Crown tenants under the 66 years' l?aso to. pay off so much of the capital value, the colony voul'l find that people were not unsophifetica-tod enough to lend money to the Government at a low rate of interc«t for a 999 v ea-s' or for a 66 years' lease, as the cisc might be. Mr Massey hinted at the dancer of r*>vn"uation. and added that the effect of tho bill must have surprised even Ministers thempelves. A tremendous amount of intoro^t had been taken in the bill from ono end of the colony to the other, and by all c!as,<s of ii. dividual*. During the lest fortm<h* o r three weeks he had received scores of letters from organisations and individuals, every ono protesting against the bill, and many of them protesting against it bororiing law this session. It went without the saying that tho more tli.'y understood the bill the less th*v thought of it. He was certain th?.* \1 it were possible to submit the pro-

posals in the bill to the public at that moment it would be rejected by an overwhelming majority. "Let me- say here, I am quite prepared for a dissolution," eaid Mr Massey. " I am ready to go to the country on the question if the Government will let us. There is an opportunity for the hon. gentlemen. I am glad to think that on this occasion no side issue will be raised, that we shall have a fair, straight issue before Parliament and the country — that ie, the question of freehold and leasehold, — and that members will vote in accordance with their convictions, and with tho pledges they gave to those who sent them here."

The Hon. Sir J. G. Ward said he could not think the last speaker had read tho bill. Ho characteri&cd it as all leasehold, but the fact was, it was full of the freehold. He had criticised his colleague by euiogising the committee which had improved tho measure, but it was his colleague who had moved nearly all the amendments in the committee. Ho invited Mr Massey's attention to the speeches delivered by men of experience years ago — Messrs E. C. J. Stevens in 1878 and C. C. Bowen in 1880— in the House advocating large endowments for the very purposes mentioned in this bill at a time when there was no old-age pension scheme. Those gentlemen belonged to th~ party with which Mr Ma->sey was associated What did he think' He himself had in 1904 called for the reform of tho land laws, and at once, but he resented now. In his memorable campaign in fhe south ho had felt the pulses of the people, and had returned with a very preat modification of his viows. Mr Massey askod for r-onsidoration for the tenants of the Crown, bvt very groat consideration had Won shown by tho bill to tho lease in-porpetuity tenants, almost as far as givirm them froeho'd There was. besides, provision in the bill for a vast increase of freehold. In 1904 Mr Massey had proposed a limitation of land to 6 a o acres of first cla=s and 2000 second class, vot ho obj.-cts to tho larger lost notions of the bill. Ho had ronoatod that outside— 64o ac res and ?OCO _ \ of ho was railing at the £15 000 resrnction of th« bill. That nlaced him on fhe horns of a dilemma. There was a want of frankness nbout the hon. gontlomon of tho nthpr S ido. For example, there \v*> ro 115 COO landholders worth 70 millions «1 prime, and they ma«!o all thi« fu.-s arouf 63 ho!<l"i'- holding ?.\ million* to bo r"st riotod and falk of the fro-ohold boinsr t-ikon a«.i\. nrii nroflure rlistr.i->t ail over t ii -• colony. Ho had mo-e-ovor snokoti of the ea^o of Lonpbeach b'lt he had not told >ho House that all tho irnrtiovornents a-o deducted

M>- Hardy Tho value would then disappear.

Tho Premier- In whir-li cay it would not bo touchpd. Coiit-iniiiig ho 'utrfrr^tcd that instead of oritu i". ••■._' the bill for not rrf<-r-rin<r t'> N:»tnv> '«■> "s Mr M^^ov hn^l hottf-«-it for th" Maori Land Bill F<- hid r r .f ; r.is/./l tl-o pior'gnaop proposal*, h-it he had failed to admit that existing mortpag+^s are exempt As to endowments, in ionic States of America on^-tenth of tho lan 1 was devoted to educ-ational endowments. A good ideal. Tho hon. member objected, also, to the 66 years' loaso. but that period was nothing in the life of a country, and mo^f usoful in tho endowmonr dire<^'on as a provision for th'.s<; great State ioiLitu-

tions. The hon. member said that the proposals were before the country at th% election. Whose proposals? The hon. gentleman said h© was a freeholder, and he had come back to that House with a party of 16. He said, " Give me a dissolution," but if he got it his party might be annihilated altogether. At best he might come back with 17, or, to please the member for Hurunui, he would make it 18. He quoted resolutions. It was a coincidence now the wires had been pulled, and all these re=olutions, concluding with that of the famous 800 at Feilding, had been hurled at the sane, just, fearless members of this House. He admired the iarmL.b and their organisation, but ho thought their organisat'on was just now being mistakenly used. At all events, at the elections they had known v> ho their friends were. They knew that the Government was doing the best thing for settling people on the hind, fcr preventing what had happened m other lands — the eviction of men from the lands of their fathers.

Mr T. Mackenzie: The leasehold. The Premier vvae sorry to hoar that, for his own people had suffered ; and he claimed that all the Mackenzie's— blue, black, and red — were with the Government on this question. — (Laughter ) Tho Government's object was the stoppage of the aggregation of large estates in the country. That policy was feasible. But applied to the towns, as Mr Massey advocated, they would have to cut the Bank of New Zealand and other places in two. and that was not a practicable policy Coming to the time limit, he was inclined to regard the proposal for the hour limit as deliberately made to waste the rest of the session. The Government could pass the bill if the House would help it before the end of the session. The Government would take two tilings to the House and countrj — endowments and limitations of holdings. Those issues would be out matched by tho leasehold and freehold, and the bill was not against freehold at all. The proposu.l6 would be for the settlement of tho sons and daughters of the farmers in the country. — (Applauee.) The House adjourned at 11.35 till 7.30 p m. (Labour Day).