HANS ON LAND.

Observer, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5, 6 October 1917, Page 2

HANS ON LAND.

And The S.D.

THE Second .Division League which, by the way, has been promised a longer tenure of N.Z. by the Minister of Defence, has been having a conference. It -~ doesn't hurt middleaged men to rub

their intellects together and it is noticed that most of the gentlemen who are making remarks are "over the age." These gentlemen, ••all Apparently of British blood, are angry with the alien enemy ior obtamiag land. As a matter of knowledge .aliens hold very large areas in New .Zealand and some of the "eyes ot the land. One speaker declared that there were in Taranaki, settlers who spoke German and thought German which is perfectly true. But Germans do not obtain land in Taranaki or elsewhere without the full consent of British people.

A German doesn't merely "squat on land and push the British man off. He bn.vs it or leases it from the owner. H_e must have a title. The title is. given him by the Government of New Zealand. If what the Second Division people say is true, the N.Z. Land Transfer Act is used , in order to convey from British subjects to alien enemies portions of "that loyal and Imperial country, JSew Zealand. The suggestion in these alienations of land to foreigners is that the British owners can t resist cash. If Heinrich Yon .Schlossel will .give Jim Jims £1 more per acre than John Johns — well, Heini-ich gets the land. The State obviously doesn't refuse a transfer to Heinrich although it has the power to. If there have been large transfers of British land to alien enemies since the war began, then the State is wholly to blame by permitting the register of the transfers in the Deeds Registry Office. We are not bound to allow Jim Jims to sell to Heinrich.

The S.D. people speak of the exorbitant rates of pay exacted by the foreigner. The settler is not obliged to employ the foreigner. If the whole of the settlers, say in the Wairarapa, decided to make a minimum wage rate, Hans would either oome to heel or wouldn't work. The question is—is Hans more useful workino- or eating 10s worth a day at Somes? John Smith and William Jones and Edward Robinson and Samuel White worked years enough for £1 a week and keep. It is a curious thing that Hans should be the first to insist on the worth of farm-work. By all means stop Hans from obtaining land but don't keep it idle because you don't want Hans to have it. Also no man, Hun or otherwise, can "demand" exorbitant wages. The weakness lies in the fact that in years gone by we didn t recognise that the Central Empires were to be our enemies. We were intensely fond of Germans, especially as officials. If a man spoke as >f he had swallowed a yard of flannel, and bounded like a tennis ball, he was sure for an under-secretaryship -under Government.

The conference does not want the ■wicked alien not to work. It wants "him to be forced to work for 5s a day—which is much, more than was habitually paid to farm labourers of British birth in N.Z. a few years since. It is a pathetic circumstance -when British farmers should be bidding for the services of men whose relatives are dropping bombs on, London. One supposes it is impossible to make German holders of N.Z. land shell out now—they are too well entrenched and are looked upon Ijy the press as people of large importance. Most of these Hun landowners lie exceedingly low and even if they do not become virtual owners of new land—there is a system of land transfer known in Australia as *•''dummying."