THE ENDOWMENT BILL.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 29, 29 October 1907, Page 4

THE ENDOWMENT BILL.

It• is: almost difficult to keep pace with the changes which the Government is making in. its land policy. No sooner has one concluded that the policy of immutable principle has stifi'ered the full limit'of. change permissible iu immutable things, than another amendment comes down to knock the definitions of "immutable" and of " principle" still further awry. Originally the national endowments wore to consist of all the unalienated Crown lands; then they dwindled to 0,000,000 acres; again, at the dam-

orous bidding of discontented Ministe- ; rialists, they dwindled still further, but with a prospect of increase. Last night they underwent still another modification. Mr. Massey had pointed out that the—up 'till then —latest amendment, which added to the- area of the mitigated schedule, the lands which might hereafter be occupied under the renewable lease or as small grazing-runs, promised a great: future extension of the endowments beyond 9,000,000 acres. Apparently the .Government had not foreseen' tins' obvious possibility, for the Premier announced last night that he would still further amend his amendment of the amended proposals by expressly limiting the whole endowment ••area to 9,000,000acres. This was at last too much for, Mr. Laurenson. 'With admirable .selfrestraint he had, up till then, refrained from; , joining the .journalistic MrSi Partington's who had persistently spught to check ihe Atlantic waves of Ministerial concessions, but there is a limit to even Mr. Laurenson's patience, lie warned the Premier against separating himself from his-friends' by trying to meet his enemies, and was indelicate enough to remind, the Premier of the Government's dependence on the Socialist wing by hinting that there was " support better worth having than that of the Opposition's." IVe call, particular attention to Mr. Laurenson's speech. He said that if the. Government had stiidk to'the endowment proposals ■ of last year it "would have evoked £i wave of enthusiasm." The debates during 'this scst sion have showii that if the' Government had been so bold .'it' would have been badly defeated on division, for, as the . Premier(himself admitted last night—nay, claimed last, night, in proud refutation—"member after member on the Government side of the House rose to make objections," even to the vastly modified proposals of this year. No doubt Mr. .Lau'renson would claim—it actually lias been claimed bysome friends of the Gpverninent-r-that, if , ;the Government liadr-stood firm, -it could have : driven' last year's Bill through. Perhaps, it.''could, and the" Government could- then take the credit of having inflicted on H the country an act which, oh' the Attorney authority, was so hopelessly vicious as to defy Rvei-y a-tteinptat improvement. Excepting the Socialist wing, not a single member wants,endowment land in his district. .ThejTtio not need to object to the, absurd 'financial arguments advanced in support of the Bill. It.is enough for them that the locking-up of the land on leasehold will do serious injury to the prospects of. settlement. Why, then, does the Premier push, on with his first instalment of land'nationalisation? And why, again, do the freeholders on.the Government side of the House support'a : proposal vitally opposed to their land tenure creed?' Mr. Laurenson's exposure of the 'feckless ambitions of the small section-that dominates the Ministry ought to opeii •the Premier's eyes'. 1 It will certainly open the eyes of the public'to the Premier's disadvantage. ' '■. • ;