FARMING LECTURER'S TOUR.

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 23

FARMING LECTURER'S TOUR.

OBSEEVATIONS BY THE WAY. (Fbom Our Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, October 16. Mr D. Jones, organiser for the Farmers' Political Protection Federation, who has returned to Christchurch after a lecturing tour in the Wellington and Hawke's Bay provinces, told a Press reporter to-day that one could not help being struck by the enormous area of good' country in the North Island. The Prime Minister states that he is unable to buy land at reasonable prices, but I am quite satisfied, said Mr Jones, that any sharp business man could get options over several thousands of acres in Wellington and Hawke's Bay at reasonable properties that are now on the market. It is all nonsense saying that no land is available, when the Government's own figures prove" 1 that their valuations for taxation purposes are 34 per cent, below actual sales. Mr Jones said that politics were very much in the air in the north at present, and the North Island was going to settle the land tenure question in favour of freehold, without even the assistance of Mr Laureneon's conversion. Many of the Government candidates were supporting what the Government had always opposed, especially in connection with the freehold and compulsory purchase of Maori lands. "In the north," continued Mr Jones, "one sees many illustrations of the extravagance of our co-operative labour system, and the feeling is very strong amongst those who have watched its operations that it should be discontinued. I was over the ground of the Mokahine viaduct on the Main Trunk line, just beyond Hunterville, and I was shown by the settlers where the State carted for many weeks with waggons one rail at a time over 10 miles of boggy roads, sometimes taking two days for the trip. If the railway had been pushed on a further three miles before the construction of the viaduct, the whole of the material could have been sent by rail. The tender for that viaduct was about £50,000. but it is estimated it cost the Government with co-operative labour about double 'that amount. It was regrettable, Mr Jones said, to see the way public opinion was demoralised by our present system of grants in the annual Public Works Statement. One -chairman of a local body put it to him thus : "I will support the present Government as long as they are in, and I'll just as strongly support the Opposition if they get in. It is the best system to ease the finances of your local body." Undoubtedly, commented Mr Jones, some drastic change was required if we were going to have purity of government in New Zealand. The present system gave the Government of the day the power to buy and sell electorates at will. In reply to a question Mr Jones said it was difficult to forecast the result of the election in the north. One of the

chief complaints was in the insincerity of the Government in connection with land settlement, and the weak and vacillating way it was changing on policy questions was such that the country really did not know what the policy of the Government was, or if it had any policy. The Labour party did not seem to be united, and was not certain whether in the second ballot it would be wise to support the Government or the Opposition. The result of the elections would largely hinge on the way its vote went.