"IN DRY DOCK.”

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LI, Issue 16869, 26 October 1925, Page 8

"IN DRY DOCK.”

LABOR 'S LAM) I'Ol.K’V. “oXl'] FOR FOOTPATH farmers.” minister of lands hits out. “TIk 1 land policy of the Labor party is a first-class one for the footpath farmer, but not one of those on the Labor benches who has been fanning—if any of them have —would place, such a policy before the people of this country.” declared the Minister of Lands (the Hon. A. D. McLeod), when speaking of the muchdiscussed land policy of the Labor pa i't y. “It is the theoretical ideas of such men as Karl Marx, Henry George, and others who tel! men all about farming the land, but who take care that they do not go in for it fhernsclv os.

“I have rend the interesting statement of Mr. Holland and Mr. Fraser about the 17 millions on mortgages, but what interests the farmer most is how the Labor party is going to dispossess the present holders and hand the land to the subsequent set of occupiers; and how they are going to change them no rents. I cannot see any difference between rent and interest. . . . MUST PAY FULL VALUE. “If-you are-going to pay the man going out the full value for his assets and give it to the other man for loss, how are you going to pay your way? The Labor party say they are not going 1o confiscate anything. But if a mart’s land is worth to him £SOO .a year, you must give him Hint value to compensate him. You cannot get away from this. There have been many fallacious discussions about unimproved values, unearned increment, and other things. They are nice mouthfuls to use to people who know practically nothing about them. They talk of, community-created value, but if a man is working on the road and wishes to buy a farm, he has to pay for it by the sweat of his brow. There is no community-created value there. “The man has yet to he born who can tell what improvements have been put into a farm. If you have a }-acre section in the city with a six-storied building on it, any practical architect can tell you approximately how much the improvements cost of the value of the land at the time of building. But let. the theoretical Labor man go into the baekbloeks of this country —• let him come to this Hutt Valley, where 30 or 40 years ago there was bush and swamp, from which many pioneers have carved their homes — and ask him the unimproved value. He can only value the improvements that are apparent. IN DRY DOCK. “If the hundreds and thousands of farmers who have carved their homes out in this manlier were paid from the day they commenced working—not by the watch but by the rising and setting of the sun —at half the rates demanded by the unions to-day, there would lie iio unimproved value on the land. , (Applause).