“IN DRY DOCK.”

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16624, 21 October 1925, Page 5

“IN DRY DOCK.”

LABOUR’S LAND POLICY. J 4<onb for footpath farmers.” MINISTER FOR LANDS HITS OUT. ■ > - “The land policy of the Labour Party is a first-class one for the footpath farmer, but not one of those on the Lahour benches who has been farming—* if any of them have—would place such a policy .before the people of this country,” declared the Minister for Lands (the Hon. A. D. McLeod) on Saturday last, when speaking of the much-dis-cussed land policy of the Labour. Party. “It is the theoretical ideas of such men as Karl Marx, Henry George, and others who tell men all about farming the land, but who take care that they do not- go in for it themselves. “I have read the interesting statement of Mr Holland and Mr Fraser about tho 17 millions on mortgages, but what interests the farmer most is how the Labour Party is going to dispossess the present holders and hand the land to the subsequent set of occupiers; and how they are going to charge them no rents. I cannot see' any difference between rent and interest. . . . Must Pay Full Value. “If you are going to pay the man going out the full value for his assets and give it to |he other man for less, how are you going to pay your way? The Labour Party say they are not going to confiscate anything.' But it, a man’s land is worth to him £SOO a year, you must give him that value to compensate him. You cannot get away from this. There have been many fallacious discussions about unimproved values, unearned increment, and other things. They are nice mouthfuls to use to people who know practically nothing about them. They talk of community-created value, but if a man is working on the road and wishes to buy a farm, he has to pay for it’by the sweat of his brow. There is no. community-created value there. “The man has yet to be born who can tell what improvements have b„een put into a farm. If you have a \-acre section in the city with a six-storied building on it, any practical architect can tell you approximately how much the improvements cost and the value of the land at the time of bbilding. But let the theoretical Labour man go into the backblocks of this countrylet him come to this Hutt Valley, where 30 or 40 years ago there was bush and ■swamp from which many pioneers have carved their homes —and ask him the unimproved value. He can only value the improvements that are apparent. In Dry Dock. “If the hundreds and thousands of farmers who have carved their homes ■out -in this manner were paid from the day they commenced working—not by the watch, but by the rising and setting of the sun—at half the rates demanded by the unions to-day, there,: would be no unimproved value on the land.” (Applause.)