PROSPEROUS AND SUCCESSFUL.

Observer, Volume XXVII, Issue 37, 1 June 1907, Page 2

PROSPEROUS AND SUCCESSFUL.

What Have the Cheviot Settlers to Grumble at?

MR W. F. MASSEY has been takiDg the Herald interviewer very much into his confidence with reference to his recent visit to the Cheviot special settlement. Mr Massey is very well satisfied with his observations and experience at Cheviot. He was received there with enthusiasm, and a motion expressing approval of the optional system was carried by a majority of nearly two to one at the largest meeting ever held in the district. . The expression of opinion from the Cheviot settlers is, says Mr Massey, exceedingly valuable, because it comes from men who have had experience of both forms of tenure, freehold and the best form of leasehold — the 999 years' lease. They have been successful, and are prosperous, but there is just one thing wanting — the option of purchase.

It probably has not occurred to Mr Massey that when he said the settlers at Cheviot were successful and prosperous, he proclaimed emphatically the soundness and wisdom of the Government land policy, and framed the strongest indictment that he could utter against his own policy of endeavouring to create dissension and distrust on the land question. If these Cheviot settlers are successful and prosperous, what reason have they to complain, and why should they ask for anything more ? It is not given to every individual ia the country to be successful and prosperous. Indeed, the fortune of a great- many is otherwise.

These settlers are only successful and prosperous because of the land policy of the Government. 1? They were unable to get qpon the land, and the

Sfcate found land for them on the leasehold principle, and it has enabled them to become successful and prosperous. Now, they only ask for one thing more. They want the right to acquire the freehold of the property, to pay for it with the proceeds of their State-aided prosperity, so that they may be iv a position to sell the freehold again at a considerable profit, and retire ou the proceeds of the transaction. By this process, the State would lose ite successful and prosperous farmers, and the burden would be placed on the land of earning larger profits, to recoup the newcomer his considerable outlay.

It is no part of the duty of the State to assist people to become buccessf ul and prosperous land speculators or exploiters. This is what Mr Massey and ihe cheviot settlers are asking. The atate has done very weli tor these and other people when it has taken them up in their necessity, found land for theuj, and enabled them to become successful and prosperous farmers. The fact that the leasehold system has done this at Cheviot — and Mr Massey says it has — is the most convincing testimony to the usefulness and effectiveness of such a policy in the work of colonization.

Mr Massey says the leaseholders want oue thing more than success and prosperity. It they do, they are unreasonable, and wholly undeserving of the help afforded them by the State in the first instance. We strongly doubt, however, whether that section of the leaseholders who intend to make their permanent homes upon the land have any desire for the freehold. There is little doubt that this desire does exist amongst the people who are eager for the unearned increment from their holdings, and who see in a sale of the land a speedier prospect of making niouey than by farming, but it would be morally wrong to promote the sordid designs of this class. The leasehold system was established to place the people on the land, and having done this and made them successful and prosperous, the policy of the luture should be to keep them on the land by maintaining their bargain with the State in its entirety.