THE LAND PROBLEM

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22510, 19 September 1938, Page 14

THE LAND PROBLEM

TO THE BDITOB OT TBS PBESS. Sir, —Now the General Elections are approaching, people will want to know, when casting their votes, what they are really voting for. It appears to me that there is no definite policy, so far, placed before the electors to guide them in making a decision. To my mind the land question is of the utmost importance, requiring consideration. The whole. future of our people for good or ill is involved in the occupation and use of our land, and ah economic system of occupation and use must be devised to .solve the matter of land settlement. It is a problem that cannot be successfully solved in our peacemeal manner; it must be dealt with on broad, national lines, as all other social problems are subsidiary to the land question. We have many thousands of men- employed by the State on various works, but we cannot continue to go on as we are doing at present, as. the time will soon come when the big works now. in hand will be completed, necessitating the displacement of large numbers of men thrown out of employment. I cannot see any hope for the future but in dealing with the occupation and use of land in a scientific way. X remember many years ago. even before the advent of the Liberal Party led by John Ballance, that the land question was of great interest to our then small population. There was then a land hunger in New Zealand, and in Australia also, and the idea of the Crown resuming all the land was advocated by a large number of people. It was proposed that all l an f|holders (freeholders) should be bought out, and that they should be given interest-bearing bonds in . payment. This of course, was impracticable, and the Ballance Government did the next best' thing by imposing a land tax, which had the effect of keeping down speculative values in land, and which enabled the Government to purchase large estates and settle a considerable number of landless people on the purchased properties. Areas of Crown lands were also opened for settlement, and when the North Island trunk railway was under construction, the then Prime Minister, Mr Seddon, urged the men to go on the land, his advice being taken by a large number. Adam Smith tells us that if you increase production from the land, your population also increases, and it must be patent to all who give the subject a little thought that economic use of land is the only way to solve the population problem. . , ■ When I refer to economic land occupation, I have in mind that in a district such as Canterbury there is considerable scope to increase the number of people on the land. There are areas of good land in' a waste cotioition covered in gorse, which could be utilised, and other land made more productive. It is far better to do this than waste labour and money on pakihi lands, “and force a churlish soil for scanty - bread.“ The best soil should be. utilised before the poor soils are dealt with, and I would respectfully direct the attention of the Hein. H. I. Armstrong and others to this aspect on' the subject. ' The question arises as to how we are to bring about economic land use. in my opinion, there are only two ways. (1) By what Thomas Carlyle describes as a “universal unexempting land tax, and (2) by the adoption of the Russian system of collective fanning. Something must be done; what is it to be 7 We have had enough land acts passed under the Reform ’ Party s regime to fill one of Mr Semple s dptested wheelbarrows, but the result has been a lowering of our rural population. We have dodged the cardinal point with disastrous results, and in my old age I have been forced to _the conclusion that the means of produ - tion from the land should be under national organisatiom^urs^ete^ Reefton, September 14, 1938.