THE COMING ELECTION

Southland Times, Issue 19500, 14 March 1925, Page 5

THE COMING ELECTION

REFORM PARTY’S POLICY SETTLEMENT AND PROPORTIONAL VOTING COMPULSORY DAIRY CONTROL UPHELD (Per United Press Association.) GERALDINE, March 13. Hon. A. D. McLeod, Minister of Lands, addressed a largely attended meeting at Garaldine last night, and was given a sympathetic hearing. Referring to soldier settlement, the Minister said that applications for revaluation numbered 5347. There had been determined 5919 and there were still to be determined 328. Reductions were given in 4798 cases. Reductions in capital value on leaseholds amounted to £1,445,755, while reductions on mortgages under Section 2 £603,270, the grand total being £2,049,025. Regarding private mortgages owing by coldiers as a result of the Board’s negotiations, reductions amounting to £71,676 were secured. REVALUATION BOARD.

The Dominion Board had completed negotiations for the purchase of private mortgages totalling £31,522, which had been purchased at a discount of £14,344. The 23 district committees set up under the Act had completed operations so far as field work was concerned.

Referring to proportional voting, the Minister said that instead of serving to eliminate the evil of having more than two parties it produced a multiude of parties, which ultimately must aim a death blow to responsible Government. LAND MATTERS. Mr McLeod dealt at considerable length with land matters and announced that in future he intended to throw lands for settlement open to civilians and soldiers on equal terms. Many young men who would have gone to the war had they not been too young were now in want of land and should have it as a matter of fairness and in view of the needs of the country for closer settlement. If New Zealand did not keep its exports up to £50,000,000 there would be trouble. It was hoped this year’s exports would touch the £60,000,000 mark, but the drop in wool would make this impossible. DAIRY EXPORT. He roundly condemned as absolute piffle the circular recently issued by the Chamber of Commerce, in which the Government was charged with Bolshevism and Socialism in agreeing to compulsory dairy produce control. He did not believe the circular represented 5 per cent, of the opinion of the business community and it said little for the intelligence of those responsible for it. He predicted that one party would cease to exist after the next election and it would not be the Reform Party. A hearty vote of thanks was accorded.

THE MINISTER AT ASHBURTON. FARM RESEARCH WORK. ASHBURTON, March 13. The Hon. A. D. McLeod, replying to a Farmers’s deputation urging Government assistance in research work, said that he had conceived a scheme for subsidising selected farmers to carry out experiments with fertilisers. Replying to the County Council’s welcome, the Minister referred to a circular issued by the Chambers of Commerce condemning the action of the Government in certain matters. If such resolutions were passed by business men, all he could say was that it did not reflect much evidence of intelligence on their part. He was convinced that the resolutions did not voice the views of 5 per cent, of the business community. It was mainly the work of a certain section; he was sure these were the ones who had not done anything to help primary producers. The Government was not going to be intimidated by any such circulars, which, if persevered in.) would bring about Bolshevism and Socialism quicker than anything else. The Minister visited the Experimental Farm and lunched with the County Council. LABOUR’S ATTITUDE. A CLEAR EXPOSITION. MR HOLLAND AT TUATAPERE. The Leader of the Labour Party, Mr H. E. Holland, M.P. for Buller, opened his political campaign in Southland at Tuatapere last evening, when ’he addressed a well attended meeting of electors on political questions of the day. Mr Holland dealt principally with the land question, and was accorded an attentive hearing.

THE PROBLEM OF AGGREGATION. In his opening address, Mr Holland said that important as the political changes were, the economic ones necessary in New Zealand were of far greater importance. He claimed that land aggregation was one of the big problems and quoted figures to show the extent to which aggregation prevailed. The total area of New Zealand in round figures was 66,250,000 acres, and of this area some 43,500,000 acres were described officially as occupied land. This latter area did not include lands within the cities and boroughs, nor yet the holdings of less than one acre each. In the whole of the Dominion there were about 150,000 land-holders, but more than 60,000 of these were holders of areas of less than one acre each. More than 15,500 held between one acre and 10 acres each. The 43,500,000 acres of occupied land were held by 86,139 land-holders, and 60 of these held more than 5,000,000 acres between them, or an average of over 84,000 acres each. Including these 60 land-holders there were less than 7000 who held nearly 30,000,000 acres. In other words, lass than onetwelfth of the land-holders held more than two-thirds of the occupied lands. On the other hand, more than 79,000 vf the landholders held less than 14,000,000 acres. To put it another way, more than eleventwelfths of the land-holders held less than one-third of the occupied lands. It was a bad thing, both economically and socially, when a mere handful of the people held control of the va. ’v major portion of the land area. The Labour Party’s policy would be directed towards breaking up the larger estates and securing closer settlement. One method towards this achievement would be a more steeply graduated land tax affecting the larger estates. THE MORTGAGE SYSTEM. Continuing, Mr Holland remarked that one of the claims made by the Reform Government was that they had given the freehold to the farmer, but he insisted that the system in operation to-day was not a freehold but a mcrtgagc-hold. If the farmer were on what he considered freehold land and if the Banks and mercantile firms held the title deeds it was a fiction to say that the tenure was a freehold. The mortgage system in the Dominion constituted a problem of the most alarming dimensions The total capital value of New’ Zealand stood at less than £554,000,000, which sum included all the improvements in the cities, towns and rural centres, plus the unimproved values, and the sum total of registered mortgages was only a little under £268,000,000, fifty-five per cent, of the value of which was on rural lands and forty-five per cent, on city and town lands. The annual interest bill, worked out at 6i per cent, on these mortgages, would amount to not less than £17,500,000. This represented an increase in the mortgage interest bill of over £11,000,000 for one year as against 1914. That yearly tribute of interest to a comparative handful of mortgagees had to be paid by both the primary producers and the consumers of the primary