WHY MR. BURNS WENT TO GERMANY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 11127, 16 November 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHY MR. BURNS WENT TO GERMANY.

IN SEARCH OF HINTS FOR LAND

LAWS

LONDON, Sept. 28.

The real reasons which prompted Mr John Biuiis's recent visit to France and Germany have not yet been given ,to the world, writes a correspondent, yet they closely affect thq proposed legislation of the Government relating to land valuation, purchase, and town planning. The visit was undertaken m order that Mr Burns mighf; "lift" from the German social system the best features for the purpose of engrafting them upon our own. „ r

In the coming session of Parliament the Goovernment will make a determined attempt to, introduce Bills making it impossible for landowners to develop estates without due regard to the convenience of the inhabitants living-in the older portions of, the town. Their Land Valuation Bill Will provide for the refistration of all land at the value fixed y*the owner, who will, be called upon to pay the land tax and local rates upon the basis of his own valuation. By the provisions of another Bill, owners will no longer be able to make: roads which lead to nowhere and lay but estates re-gardless-of outlets or inlets, local authorities wjll not be able to pass^plans for ' houses- which have an insufficient .amount of light and air space. n*. A -further Bill will give county councils—and m default of their acting the Government — power to expropriate land at the owner's registered valuation for the purpose of the erection of cottages m rural districts. ...-'

It was for the purpose of ascertaining the virtues of French and German urban and rural housing, >nd their effect upon the< physique of the people, that Mr Burns spent one of the hardest holidays one could imagine. In Germany his activity astonished the officials, his thirst for information was insatiable; arid he looked so unlike a Minister! z In .the morning when out alone he v wore the bowler Jiat and the short jacket of the ordinary Englishman. On formal visits of inspection he donned a, morning coat, which is declared by, his friends iri the House of Commons tq be one of the smartest m cut and fit at St. Stephen's. In the evenings he was, besieged with invitations to dinners, -and when he accepted these he appeared m regulation evening dressy It ' was on these occasions according to private accounts from German sources that he disillusioned the German officers, Officials, and Ministers as to the 'type of Minister he- really is. The Germans expected to find a noisy, uncultured agitator, with wild views on social and political questions. Instead of this no one could "draw" him on politics. He was a keen listener but a bad talker on social' questions—a man out to learn and not to teach. „ T ,