LAND SETTLEMENT.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 598, 28 August 1909, Page 15

LAND SETTLEMENT.

THE, STATE AND SPECULATION • V (lly. Teleernph.-Sntclal Corr'csDUndcnU Chrlstohurch, August 26, • "Tile Hon. Mr. ..Millar," savs Uio Christchurch "Press," "is rapidly gaining in public confidence as . being perhaps the most levelheaded: prelaw one who is least afraid • of. expressing; -his opinions. In conversation with one of our I reporters 1 day or -two- ago, Mr. Millar madu I a remark which- we are. surprised i has not ;been. takeo. exception to by ioinel of ' his; land' nationalising ~ colleagues,: . but which : will strike -. the majority of the: public as being based on sound common senso. He saw .that !tho Government should not' continue , to , buy,- lands > for: people to speculate with and make!fortunes out,of; :He thought it would bo far.: better' if they settled all the available, Crown- lands 'before buying any more ' : We 1 , have long argued that, before ex i propriatingj-the-lands of European' settlors i .who, axe occupying, the land profitably,' f.he^Government, should, settle not only the 1 available' Crown: lands,i but the surplus N&tivo lands' Hot required for actual i Use and occupation, by the Maori people i No ono-now seriously, defends the plan of disposing of settleraentrlands by.ballot'at a I comparatively low price, thus enabling a few |-fortunate.-.-persons to , acquiro a valuable i leasehold. at a . price below the real value. | It is certainly'unjust to: the rest of the popu- | latidn. 1 . and detrimental to' the "Dominion as I a wholo that the -.public.' debt should 'have been so enormously added to in order to enable these lucky . speculators to make fortunes that - would have been, avoided to a very largo extent if the Crown.tenants had' been given the .option -of converting ' their I leaseholds into freeholds < • "Instead of going .to .the British money-. I lender time-after 'time and' making him' the" absentee landlord of. largo tracts of land in this country; we could,, after a very moderate loan had been raised in the first instance, have -used the purchaso money paid for the freehold: to 6pen up Crown lands, or to -buy land from the Natives for' fresh settlement: | and 1 this 'process could .have been repeated indefinitely without fresh recourse to the London :,moncy. market.-,i-.-This reform,'-"-for; ■, whioh v the Opposition .had beej\ strenuously fighting,:■ will naVe: to 'be' 1 (Jonceded; r unless we are content to abandon land settlement altogether, or see- ' the -:- country gradually sinking under an. ever-accumulatitog load of debt '