THE LAND PROPOSALS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2905, 17 November 1909, Page 4

THE LA ND PROPOSALS.

The political dexterity whicflr characterises the new land proposals in the Financial Statement is undeniable. Sir Joseph .Ward ' proposes to placate the leaseholders in Parliament and the country by still reserving for leasehold the nine million acres of land that tre comprised in the National Endowment. But in deference to the advoates of the freehold he yields to the

' bolder of all other land occupied under lease from the Crown liberty to become, under certain conditions, the absolute owner of his land. Astute as the Prime Minister is, however, he fails to see that the proposals are mutually destructive. If the right is now given to the Crown tenants to acquire the freeholds, how is that right consistently to be refused to future tenants? And if it is not politic to give Crown tenants the freehold, why concede it now ? The truth would seem to be that the Financial Statement is a composite document, embodying an attempt to reconcile the divergent views whicli members of the Government are known to hold on most of the leading questions of the day. For example, Mr Fowlds marches out with the honours of war by having secured the exclusion of the National Endowment from the application of the freehold principle, and MiThomas Mackenzie may rejoice over the concession of the freehold option to Crown tenants. The views of Mr Carroll and Mr Ngata are probabiy reflected in the Native land proposals. The master hand of Mr Millar Can be detected in the application of the betterment principle to railway con- . struction, the revision of the death duties represents I>r Findlay's contribution to the Budget, while over the whole the Prime Minister, in the role of the wizard of finance, as an enthusiastic supporter of the Government once called him, throws tho glan_-t-:-r of hope in the return of prosperity. That portion of the Statement which deals with the land question indicates the extent to which the Government says it is prepared to make concessions to the freehold sentiment, and

is- characteristic ot the methods it has l always adopted on 'tbje ;question. 4 ; TJn.-» fortunately t_e solution 'of the ques- " tion now put forward lacks the ring •of sincerity, asuj ; "we '.are afraid* « that the offer of the freehold option may* be regarded as quite t ,^illusqry J . ! y The' proposal to ccM^ede Ihe freehold Jto'the perggtud|tl*asehaiaers' is hedged ] the condißo'nHhafc %ive owner shall | xxmtribnte to t_e State some portion of I the allegedly "unearned" increment. I .The tenant may^'if he chooses, . pur- ~" chase his land Vithin two years at the original valuation plus one-half of , the increased value. It is to be noted j T&h'at the Prime assumes a , steady increase in land values — 3n ' assumption that is not necessarily • sound. The leaseholder may, further, | purchase the freehold at any time at ' *!%$! original vitiation plus half the j increment, upoii the: terms that lie ! distribute the payment of the I "increase in the value over five recur- j rent periods of thirty-three years, the ! land thus becoming an absolutely un- ! charged freehold at the end of 165 . years from the date of the exercise of ' the option. In either case the pur- j chase money may be paid in cash, or t payment may be made on the instal- ! ment system already in vogue. It \ must be admitted that, though its j details seem to us unsatisfactory, the proposal implies a great concession to j the freehold sentiment, the extent and ! force of which are now admitted by ! Sir Joseph Ward. The objectionable j feature of the scheme is that which ' clogs the concession with burdensonip ' conditions. Quite apart from the difficulty of defining the extent to which ] the State has contributed to an increase I in land values and of adjusting the balance between that factor, the effect of individual skill or effort, and the i influence of external markets upon these values, it is invidious to select the land more than any other source of ; wealth for the application of the prin- '. ciple that the State shall claim its < share of the increment. And it is per- ' fectly evident that any attempt to \ equalise the obligation under which the ; perpetual leassholder lies to the State , with that owed by the holder ,pf a j renewable lease with a tenure of sixtysix years or of thirty-three years must be purely empirical. In the one case the original value • remains at the same j figure and is represented by the same ! annual payment, while^in the other ; revaluation takes place at the end of each successive term. Moreover, in attempting to estimate the extent which advantage may be taken of the proposed option, we must not ignore the existence of the speculative element that has defied repression throughout the country. According to a table laid before the House last year at the | instance of Mr Bollard, of the 992G ! persons who took up land under lea^ej in perpetuity there were only 4095 in* occupation on March 31, 1908, while 1419 persons had sold their interests in land-for-settlement leaseholds, leaving 2581 in occupation. Plainly, those who have already paid a large sum for j the goodwill of a lease In ; will not acquire the freehold, as that j would involve their buying the land twice over. There is more, however, in tin* j alleged concession to the freeholder than meets the eye. The Government has found that even advanced Socialists and Labour representatives placo | beyond everything a freehold home. One of them «aid in a Dunedin eonj stituency at the la>-t general election ; that he would like to see every man i ! a freeholder to the extent of owning '' I his own quarter of an acre of land. \ j Accordingly the Ministerial «ail is set ! I to woo the favouring wind. There c^n ' j be no question of the partial failure > j of the leasehold system to achieve its j J avowed object — the bona fide settlement j of people on the land. As Mr Ma^>sey reminded the House las-t year, specu- J lators have taken advantage of the , , demand for land. They have gone in for every ballot, assisted Tiy their friend«, because they kn,ew perfectly well that i if they were successful in drawing good i sections they would be able at once ! ito get a handsome profit thereon. ■ I Further, no one has yet been able to • differentiate between the morality of j ! conducting a ballot for land and of a ; precisely similar operation about the j issue of a hoxse race. But really the Government has put forward so many land proposals -which have been radi- ' i cally different -that scepticism as to j [ whether finality has yet been . reached . I may be pardonable. |