Land law Reform.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5191, 25 February 1895, Page 1

Land law Reform.

OPEN-AIR MEETING,

An open-air meeting, convened by the Canterbury Progressive Liberal Association, was held in Cathedral Square on Saturday evening. Thero was a very large attendance. The President of the Association (Mr W. I. Ballin^er) presided. Mr Q. W. Russell, member for Biecarton, who was warmly received, said that the importance of the land question was Buch that all other questions shrank into insignificance before ib. Ib was small wonder thai; people clamoured for a reform of the present land laws, for under the freehold tenure the masses had been robbed for the last five hundred years. The man who owned the land had a right to say whether the people bad a light to live, for it was from the land that the people drew their sustenance. He thought that it was high time that the people had the land back in their own hands. 3he first step had been taken by the passing of the Land for Settlements Act cf last session, but the Act must be' improved, and an Act passed preventing any further land from being sold. While agreeing that the House did right in regard to the .£2,000,000 guarantee to the Bank of New Zealand, he considered that if the same amount of money were spent in settling people on the land and allowing <£LOO to each settler, two thousand families could be put upon the land ; and estimating the number of each family at five eouls, it would* be equal to increasing the land-settled population by JCO.OOO. He was of opinion tbafc the value of the village settlements would be greatly enhanced were they located alongside the railway, and the settlors granted the right to pa S3 to and fro on the lines to a town for £1 per annum. It was to the interest of the colony to keep the population in New Zealand, ne each man was worth £5 per annum to the State. The present Land foi* Settlements Act was faulty in many respects. In the first place, under it the unearned increment was not secured to the State. Another fault was that the clause allowing 500 acres to be appropriated within five miles of a borough only applied to the four chief centres of population in the colony; elsewhere n. thing le:s than 1000 acres could be taken compulsorily. This inflicted great hardships en many of the lesßer centres of population. He was' firmly of opinion that the unearned increment on land belonged to the people of the colony, and not to the owner of the land, for did not the people create the uneorned value in land ? He considered the Government was neither acting wisely nor in the interests of tho people in not insisting that all land • held under lease from the State should be subject to periodical revaluation. He thought that there was no shadow of a doubt .as to whether village settlements paid the State or not; they were distinctly a boon to the settler, and he trusted that there would bo a considerable increase in the number of tluse settlements. He moved — "That, in order to secure the unearned increment in land to the State, it is imperative that all land held under lease from the State should be subject to periodical revaluation, rents to be inereosad or decreased from time to time as may be required." Mr H. 6. Ell seconded the motion which was carried without a hand being held up against it. Mr W. W. Collins, who on rising tc 6peak was greeted with applause, referred to the need that exited for the establishment cf a living wage, a movement which be felt would bo greatly promoted bj further radical legislation in connectior with the land laws. Every individual born into the world was entitled to more than a bare existence. No individual or the earth had more right -to live thai another. In asking for the right to com puhorily resume possession of land ih State waß not asking for power to confis cate, but for power to enforce the jightß o the people. When all the labour and other social iaws failed to improve thi condition, of the whole people ifc clearly demonttrated that there was BOmothinj radically wrong, the seat of whicl lay in the land laws. He agreed entirely with Mr Ru3sell when he said the un earned increment in land belonged to th people. The unearned iccremant wa created by the great body of the people individuals eeiz?d opportunities to pG3ses themselves of it, and this was the reaso; why he was in favour of a progressive lam tax. He would fihe-'toece village settle ments established near Christchurch coa Bisting of allotments of two or three, o four or five acres each, and ha had waiter on Mr M'Kenzie with reference to an es tension of the scheme. There ought nc to exist tho present extremes of riches an poverty, but ho felt that these extremt would bo lessened by a wider distributio of tho landed wealth of the people, and : was the duty of the present generation 1 promote by every means in its power tl great work of land law reform, bo ths those coming after ub would be surround* by conditions more conducive to the enjo; mentof life. He moved—" That a larg extension of the allotment system in tl neighbourhood of large centres of popul tion ia absolutely necessary, so a» to affoi an opening for partially omployed labour Mr "VV. Eusom seconded tho rnotio which was carried unanimously. A vote of thankß to the speakerD, movi by Mr Ensom, wtts carried with acolam tion.