POLITICAL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 109, 28 October 1911, Page 7

POLITICAL.

|, ' A RENT FREE OFFER. i _ The Wellington Times deals in a recent issue with a point raised by Mr. Wilson, 'the. Opposition candidate for TaumaruI i"H>' lit his Waitara meeting. Mr. WilI son 'said he was in favor of "giving young 1 men land rent free for three, four, or i five years, to ensure more effective settlement." Assuming this to be put forhvfird seriously, and to be intended as | a practical contribution of thought to an public question, it becomes necessary, says the Times, to ask a few ■questions. Under the Bush and Swamp j Larids Act concessions in regard to rent | 'during the early years of occupation are nJi'eady granted, and wisely so; but we j_ f Dice it that Mr. Wilson would apply the j free-rent principle generally. If so. it i may hot be considered impertinent if !•;?? as ' c w ' ,a t land, and whose land, it t is proposed to deal out ju this generous, off-hnmt way The proposition can hardly be put forward seriously in 'regard to the public estate, seeing that -(.here is 110 public estate worth talking about left. For the purpose of "effective settlement" <we must have something "better than bush' and swamp lands. We must have land approaching the quality Itnowii as first-class, and we must have "a gre-.it deal more of it than the Crown •ritnV possesses. There is plenty of territory suitable for effective settlement in the Wairarapa, Hawke's Bay, and Marllwrough districts, for example, but it ■would be at least peculiar to find an accepted Opposition candidate proposing that; this should be given out rent free. We do not see how the State can entertain the idea of giving anything but inferior -land rent free, since it has but a fragment left to dispose of on any terms, atiul ~<for that there are multitudes of woujd-be settlers ready to pay. The latest particulars available show that in 'the year 1008-9 less than 15 per cent. 6f the applicants for Crown lands secured sections; in the next twelve months the diminishing supply reduced the percentage of successful applicants to a little over 13 per cent,; and last year it must have been considerably less. In 1009-10 .' there were 800 sections for Go t7 applicants, Tliis means that for every new ■settler provided by the Crown with land to reside upon and make a living from, seven are turned away landless." Witli such a tremendously preponderating de- 1 mand over available supply—with°hun-l dreds of people clamoring' to take up ! kind and ready to pay for it—we have an ' Opposition supporter advancing a pro-1 posal so ludicrous that if it came from I any other source Mr. Massey and all j his friends would laugh it to scorn. As 1 cjosely as can be calculated, about 90' per cent, of the lands of the Dominion has passed into the hands of 18 per cent, of the population. This position will have to be appreciably altered before there can be very much more! "effective settlement," and it will only Us accomplished by means which the Opposition will never support. To talk of giving land rent free when there arc so many people willing to pay for it is bad enough ; to suggest that we should give what we have not got is—shall we say-the limit? Mr. Wilson oitlu-r proposes to take liberties with the properties of his political friends which we are very much afraid they will resent and resist, or he is talkino- about something that i,s impossible of realisation. he is asking to be elected to Parliament, presumably to give practical shape .there to his scheme, the public is perhaps entitled to know a little more about it, and particularly whether the party that accepts Mr. Wilson is willing to help him to supply land on such favorable terms, and how they are going to do it. The position, concludes our contemporary, at present is rather puzzling.