TOO THINLY DISGUISED.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 26, 25 October 1907, Page 4

TOO THINLY DISGUISED.

Nothing is more plain than that the National Endowments Bill will meet with strong opposition in its passage through .Committee. The debate upon the second reading disclosed in the ranks of the Government supporters a very active hostility to the land nationalisation, which masquerades as a scheme for the assurance of the education and old age pensions systems of this country. The fundamental objections to the Bill are twofold. The Flon. C. H. Mills said during the debate on Wednesday night that the introduction of the Bill implied that Parliament couid not trust itself, to take proper care Of the Country's revenue without tying-up the land. Mr. Mills meant, of course, that the needs of . education and old age pensions should be met in the natural way, by wise finance, and that the ordinary resources of the Exchequer should be so cultivated as to. yield returns in-, creasing with necessities. Herein lies the first impropriety of the aiill, and it is ail impropriety independent of, and supplementary to, the folly relying for great and vital needs upon a source of- revenue which is as likely to dwindle as to increase. The other character which damns the measure is its retardation of the settlement which, if endbui'aged aiid;' assisted, would secure the best aiitl most stable guarantee of maintenance of the national funds. It is expected .by. the Government that the land which it is proposed to set apart will yield only £49,000 a year. How can the Premiers/with his reputation as a shrewd business man, expect that people will believe lie is sincere when he puts forward that paltry sum as the solution of the financial problem of departments which cost £300,000 more last year than, they did four years ago, and which must increase continuously and more rapidly in the. future Is it worth while retarding settlement by. introducing a system'which falls so ridiculously short of its alleged design?'' So honest a Ministerialist as Mr. Graham declared that "he could liot understand why the Government desired to force the. Bill on the country.". People with a less simple faith-.in the. sincerity of tiie Government understand the orir : giii of the Bill very. well,, and, if they had 'any doubt about it, they must have had their- doubts removed by the significant 'lieat ; of the Premier when Mr. R. M'Kenzie put into words what everybody thinks, and, ascribed the Bill to the influence of Mr. laurenson and.the other Socialists who have got the ear of the Ministry. ■: 'The Bill is simply Land Nationalisation masquer-' admg-as High Finance, and .it ~is on this account, rather than oil account of its bad, effect Upon.llk , particular, constituency,'.that every member' who recoils from : land nationalisation should oppose it; The question is not whether there should be land endowments or not; rather it is whether a further large invasion is, or is not, to be made against the freehold. If members vote as ■.■they, speak, so little will'.be left 'of the 'Bill that, the Government' cannot, with any decency, place-it on the Statute Book.. What we fear is that the crack of the Government whip will bring the rebels to heel. The Premier spoke of. daggers and stabs in the backhand we are.uneasy when we ■remember that whenever he talks of stabbings and his followers show a remarkable reversal of views. B.ut in this case such a swallowing of principles is - surely improbable. 1 Having already conceded a great territory to the Socialistic advisers of the Government., the House is not likely to abandon the whole position to them by surrender on a proposal to injure the progress of land settlement in order to secure £49,000 to meet an annual liability of nearly a million sterling.