BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1948 “PINCH AND TAKE”

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 22, 17 February 1948, Page 4

BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Tuesdays and Fridays. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1948 “PINCH AND TAKE”

In his statement published on Friday concerning the compulsory clauses of the Servicemen’s Settlement and Land Sales Act, our district Member of Parliament, Mr Sullivan, said it was time for the Government to apply its efforts to the real job of Empire building and quit the policy of “pinch and take.” There is something about the phrase that appeals. To the matter under discussion it seems particularly apt. Right now most of the remaining private enterprises are feeling the “pinch” and fearing the “take.”

No-one would to stand in the way of a soldier’s chance to rehabilitate himself, but the soldiers themselves would, probably want to be the last to do it at the expense of any one section of the community. 1 If Mr Sullivan’s summing up of the terms of the Act is correct, and there seems no reason to doubt that, then it does seem unfair that the Government should be able to force a property owner to relinquish his land at a value based on 1942 production when, as Mr Sullivan points out, he may have to acquire a new home at 1948 rates.

True, it can be argued that to ask the soldiers to pay the full price that present-day conditions might be said to justify would be to jeopardise their chances of success. It is not the attempt to help the soldiers that is to be deplored. That is in itself commendable.

But it would appear that the method chosen casts an unfair share of the burden on property owners who have lands suitable to come within the scope of the Government’s contemplated “grab.” Why should those people bear the whole of the loss represented by the diffeernce between 1942 production value and replacemeht value of their property?

Is not rehabilitation a national matter? And, if that be so, should not the nation as a whole stand the cost?

Moreover, Mr Sullivan’s reference to Crown lands capable of further development does seem a line of thought worthy of further investigation. Wonders have already been worked at Galatea. No doubt similar work could be done elsewhere. From a national point of view and, on the wider scale, from the point of view of the Empire, would it not be a better proposition to increase the productive acreage of the country than to take over land that is already fully productive and probably lose something of its maximum productivity in the first seasons following the change-over? This is not the only angle of the Land Sales legislation that is open to question. It is reasonably safe to say that its restrictive clauses have aggravated an already desperate housing problem.

Up to a point, the legislation has achieved its object of. keeping property prices down, but it is open to abuses. Moreover, there seems little doubt that it has kept property that might otherwise have been offered off the market. If the Government intends to be consistent, might there not be grounds for fearing that the compulsory “acquiring” of land might be only the prelude to similar raids on businesses and professional practices? In cases such as those, one could imagine some very interesting appeals based on the definition of the “economic unit” that was to be left for the owner.