The Sun SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1914. LAND SETTLEMENT AND LIBERAL PROSPECTS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 145, 25 July 1914, Page 8

The Sun SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1914. LAND SETTLEMENT AND LIBERAL PROSPECTS.

An animated and rather instructive ] discussion took place in the House of s Representatives last night concerning land settlement and the graduated tax. ( The Prime Minister pointed with pride and satisfaction to the fact that estates , comprising nearly a million acres are , tc'ng subdivided every year. An attempt was made by various members of , the Opposition to discount this by suggesting that some of the subdivisions v.ere merely, family arrangements under v.hich separate titles were issued in respect to areas of land that were still farmed as single holdings. There ■is little or nothing to object to in this procedure, because even if a farmer distributes his land amongst his family it is not long before the members of it grow up and acquire families of their own, and the subdivision then becomes os real as if the land had been sold to st 1 angers. It is one of the mysteries of f olitics why the Liberal Party should be so possessed by the mania for settlement and subdivision. It has been pursuing a vendetta against the land owner for years, with the result that a system tf penal taxation has b : een r devised and brought into operation for the express purpose of making people part with their land, whether any good accrues to the community or not. When the Beform Party came in it tightened s up the screw, with the result that the country is in a fair way to become filled with small farmers, engaged mainly in the busines of raising produce for export. There is no question that the "Reform Party has everything to gain by encouraging settlement in every possible way, because the more farmers there are the. less likelihood there is of any Liberal-Red Fed. combination ever attaining political power in New Zealand, but it seems to us that in its zeal tor hounding the large landowners to oeath, the Liberals have digged a pit for themselves from which they are i.ot likely to emerge for a very long time. As a party they draw the bulk of their support from the workers generally, the artisan, the labourer, 'Axe on all city trader, arid others who like ttwn life too well to go on the land, even if the 3' got it for next to nothing. Of late years, the voting power of this class has been largely neutralised by the growth of the farming community. The Reformers garnered the first fruits of the Liberals' land policy at the electiens of 1908, when the Liberal majority in Parliament was seriously cut dewn. In 1911" it disappeared altogether and the Reformers came in. This year the Liberals are threatened with virtual extinction, mainly because the balance of political power has been transferred from the cities to the country. The process has been facilitated even more by the advance in the price of food products throughout the world, I'nan by the graduated tax, although Messrs Russell and Co. are sublimejy ignorant of the fact; and whether we like it or- not, the political affairs of j New Zealand are now dominated by the element in the community which is mainly interested in the export trade, liven if the Liberals do not realise it row, they will after the elections, when it will be brought home to them that the kirge landowner was really tho best friend they had, although th'ey didn't know it. As long as he was there to be abused as the enemy .of those v. ho lived in towns ami voter! for tlie Liberal-Labour Party, Liberalism prevailed at the polis. New lie has been ' displaced by a large tribe of small farmers, in whose nostrils Liberalism, tainted with Red Fed-ism smells like a ■ dead horse, the Liberals are cast so far into, the outer darkness, of political opposition that it is impossible to discover any sign of their return with the n.ost powerful telescope. It is a long price to pay for having entertained such ' a zeal for land reform!