LAND TENURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9272, 26 June 1908, Page 1

LAND TENURE.

♦ MR HANSSON'S VISIT TO CHEVIOT IMPRESSIONS OF THE ESTATE. Mr Johan Hansson, of Gothenburg, has returned to Christchurch from the Cheviot Settlement, to .yhich he made v a special visit. Iv giving popular leeI tures in Sweden, he selected New Zealand as one of his subjects, and he frequently referred to Cheviot, and showed lantern slides, of scenes on the settlement. He told a reporter last evening that ho was rather surprised' to find that the place was so beautiful. He found the land comparatively well cultivated, although there was more sheep grazing than he had thought there would be. He met some of the leading men of the district, who kindly gave him a great deal of information. It was with some regret that he learnt that the operations of ) the dairy factory had heen discontinued. He came from a oountry where dairies and intensive farming were the order of the day, and he found some difficulty in accepting the theory that the large farms he saw in New Zealand were altogether desirable. The farmers in the dominion seemed to him to have far too much land. They tried to work the farms fco the best advantage, and spent a great deal of their efforts in uneconomical labour. They lived too far apart to cooperate. If they were near enough to act in co-operation they could get the same return from a smaller amount of work. Mr Hansson he lieves that it would be bettor to have a kind of sliding scale for rents of Crown lands. He thinks that the lands should be valued every three years, and that the rents should be based on the Government valuations. Rents would then increase and decrease with the values, and they would always be in proportion to the values. In bad years and calamitous years rents would fall; in prosperous years they would rise. The lessees should always be able to pay the rents. On the other- hand, they would not be induced to sell the goodwill at a great profit and speculation would be stopped, and the lessees would give aH their attention to tHe cultivation df their farms. He added that he had met several persons who were under the impression, from remarks made by him previously, tliat the small landholders in Denmark wanted the State to take over iihe land and rent it out to them again. They wanted the State to limit the freehold by taking over the ground rent and imposing taxation upon land values, freeing the Customs tariff. They were, what was called, in New Zealand, single-taxers, and they wore the driving force in that movement in Denmark. A resolution embodying the principle had heen passed in 1892 at an assemblage of small farmers, held to organise a "small farm movement* in one of the most prominent provinces, and similar resolutions had been passed repeatedly not only in that province but also all over the country. In Denmark there were 160.000 small farmers making a living on the land.