The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING FRIDAY, MAY 30. 1919. TRAFFICKING IN LAND.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16448, 30 May 1919, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING FRIDAY, MAY 30. 1919. TRAFFICKING IN LAND.

At tho Farmers’ Union Conference held in New Plymouth last week a resolution was passed to the effect that in th*e best interests of .the Dominion, for tho purpose of increasing production, it is imperative that steps should be taken to put a stop to the excessive trafficking in land that is taking place in the Dominion. With Mr. Maxwell, we can see no possible way of giving effect to the re-solution, hut the discussion may do some little good by directing attention to a practice which is decidedly harmful. At this season of the year it is usual for many farms to change hands, but this year the movement is more pronounced than usual. We are not prepared to say that the high

prices given are in all cases'unjustified; in some cases they are absurdly high, while in others they are quite moderate. Nor •would it he a fair thing to impose heavy taxation on land 'transactions with a view of discouraging transfers, for that would hit the hardest those who were compelled for one reason or another" to sell. If there were nothing more in it than the mere "making of a rise" by a speculator it would not be of great moment to the country ias a whole. But there is more in it. There are too many speculators making a business of buying and selling 'farms, buying them not for the sake of making a home and a living out of the land, but in the hope of selling again at a profit. At this time of the year, after a genuine farmer has passed through a strenuous season, he is easily tempted to sell, and the speculator hopes, by shutting up the paddocks perhaps for a few weeks and possibly spending a little, money in repairing the fences or painting the house, to find a buyer a little later on at a substantial advance. If he has hot that luck he is prepared to hold the farm for a year and either lot the grazing or put store stock on it. He has no intention of dairying, / but simply holds till he can sell at a profit. This is no good to the country, which wants every acre of land to be put to the best use. And what about the man who has sold ? Often he finds too late that he has made a mistake in selling a farm from which he has made a good living, only to find that he cannot buy into anything as good as he has left. There will always be farms changing hands for one reason or another, because a man finds he cannot make a living, because he wants a change of climate for health reasons, because with a family growing up he wants a larger farm,/or because his sons are leaving home and he wants a smaller one. These are legitimate reasons, but when he sells merely because he has what .looks like a good offer, and then finds that he cannot buy as cheap a farm anywhere else, he is doing no good for himself and is actually hindering the prosperity of the country. • The best asset New Zealand can have is a prosperous and contented rural community of fanners living on and farming their own land to the best advantage. People on the land should be encouraged to stay there, not by heavy taxation, but by providing them with the comforts and conveniences of town life as far as possible. .. Good roads, good mail services, telephones, electric light and power where possible, good/ schools not too far away, all these things will tend to make country life more tolerable and farmers less eager to sell out when someone comes along and offers them a? good price for their land. A constantly shifting rural population does not conduce, to making the best, use of the land, nor is it good for the country or for the man who is actually working the land to have a large idle population drawing high rents from farm'lands.