The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1919. LAND AGGREGATION.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16503, 2 August 1919, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. DAILY EVENING SATURDAY, AUGUST 2, 1919. LAND AGGREGATION.

Kn its efforts to prove that laird aggregation has taken place in a marked degree since the Liberal Party gave way for the Reform Government seven years ago the New Zealand Times has \i habit of quoting statistics which are misleading, and, we suspect, deliberately so. In a loading article on Thursday, defending the Liberal Administrations against an attack by Mr. Semple, our contemporary compares first the numbers of “owners” of land in 1889 and the areas owned with the corresponding figures for 1910. These figures show that in the period named every freehold estate over JOO.OOO acres in extent was cut up and that the number of freehold holdings of 10,000 acres and upwards was reduced from 250 to 161. Tills no doubt was in a large measure due to the Liberal land policy, but it was a natural process also. In the aggregate nearly four million acres

of land was so cut up in the twenty-one years and the arciage holding' over 10,000 acres in extent was reduced from -10,009 acres to 20,523 acres. So fur oiu contemporary is entitled to its point. But then it goes on to say that after 1910 the position changed and the reaggregatiou of estates commenced. In support of this assertion it quotes a totally different table ef statistics, making the comparison misleading. The statistics given above refer to freehold lands only, hut the limes switches off freeholds on to “occupied" holdings, including Crown pastoral leases, comparing the holdings between one thousand and fifty thousand acres in 1909 with those in 1918. These figures show that in that period the number of those holdings was increased from 4914 to 6664, and our contemporary remarks that “the trail of aggregation is Imre very broadly marked. In ten years the number of each of the larger properties, from 1090 to 50,000 acres, has steadily increased, and is still increasing rapidly.'’ There is no evidence adduced to support the latter statement, while the former conveniently—and no doubt deliberately—suppresses the. fact that in the same period the number of holdings over 50,000 acres in extent was reduced from 84 to til. Further, our contemporary lias conveniently—and no doubt deliberately— “skipped’’ the figures for 1911 in the same table. These show that between 1908-9 and 1911, under the Ward -Ministry, the number of holdings over one thousand acres in extent increased from 5018 to ST9G, Further comparison shows that while in 1908-9 the average holding over a thousand acres in extent was 5508 acres it had been reduced in 1918 to 4486 acres. These figures prove conclusively that since the lleform Government came into power seven years ago there has been a steady movement in the direction of cutting up largo estates. It has no doubt occurred in the last four or five years that many holdings have been disposed of by men going on active service to adjoining owners, thus leading to some little aggregation. On the other hand one lias only to watch the land sales advertisements in the press of the Dominion to learn that an immense area of land is being subdivided for sale. It is a natural process which cannot well bo stopped. New Zealand has an area of sixtysix million acres. When the population was counted in thousands the average land holding was naturally large. As the population came to be counted, in hundreds of thousands the average holding decreased gradually, and as the population grows it will continue to decrease, sometimes rapidly, at other times more slowly. No Government will dare to encourage aggregation.