The Dominion. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1910. THE FARMERS' UNION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 824, 24 May 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1910. THE FARMERS' UNION.

One of the many remits on the order paper of the Wellington Provincial Conference of the Farmers' Union, which opens at Marton today, reads as follows: "That when motions are confirmed by the Dominion Conference they should be forwarded to the members of Parliament favourable to the farming community with a view of having tho necessary legislation introduced in accordance with tho terms of the motions." There is 'raised in this simple little proposal the central issue for the farmers of this country. Although the land furnishes fivesixths of our exports, and the stability and happiness of the nation depend so very largely upon those who follow rural pursuits, there are in the House and in the Ministry strong and even violent advocates of the doctrine tliat the fanner is something in the nature of a fat robber battening on the blood of city worker. The Farmers' Union is perfectly awaro of this fact, but it has never made up its mind to give the fact the only recognition that is due to it, namely, the carrying out of a drastic campaign against its assailants. The Union has certainly done a good deal to advance the interests it exists to protect, but it has failed very signally to strike hard at the real menace to the man on the land, which is not merely the Socialistic group that dominates tho Government's policy, but the group of country members who, elected on the farmers' votes, seldom hestitate, when the two are in conflict, to subordinate tho interests of the farmer to the political necessities' of the Ministry. There will be little profit in sending resolutions on to "the members of Parliament favourable to the farming community," and no real protection will be secured against the anti-agrarian activities of the Radical party, unless the Union exerts its influence 'against the election of unreliable men as representatives of rural constituencies.

The question 'of land .tenure is still the most important that can engage tho Union's attention. It is amazing that after years of shuffling the Government is still able to thwart the will of the people in this important matter.' A Malum remit proposes "that' the Government be asked to amend the Land Act so as to give all Oro«n tenants the option of purchasing the freehold for their lands." The remit goes on to suggest a basis, of valuation and winds up with a con-fusingly-worded proviso which we read as meaning that the option of the freehold shall not apply in tho case of "endowment" land. Should the Conference agree to this appen'dage to the main proposition, and should it be'endorsed by the General Conference, the Union will do itself serious injury as a champion of sound principles. For, to concede the_ propriety of the permanent ownership of millions of acres of land by the State is to concede the whole case of the land Rationalisers. If it be a good thing for the State to own 7,000,000 or 9,000,000 acres of land it is a good thing for the State to own all the land in the country. There is nothing to be gained by hedging on this point, and the Union had better realise it at once. We do not believe, as a matter of fact, that the branches of the Union are all as unaware as the Makuri branch of the bogus character of the specious plea for "tho preservation of the endowments." The hollowness of that plea has been exposed over and over again. The revenue from these lands, it is urged, will assist the financing of the education system and the old ' age pensions scheme, but he is a very ignorant person, asleep to tho financial mothods of the day, who does not know-that neither education nor old age pensions will suffer by a pennypiece 'if the National Endowment Act were repealed. The national revenues are lumped together. If a portion of the land revenues are put in the drawer labelled "Education," an equal amount that would othervise bo required from the ordinary revenues to make up the Education vote will be set free for expenditure' in somo other Department. The revenue from the "endowments," therefore, no more goes towards financing the Education Department than towards financing the Tourist Department. The Government hopes, by using the word "endowment" and performing a little bookkeeping trick, to keep its grip on tho principle of land nationalisation in the hope of getting a tighter grip at what it expects will be a favourable time. This, of all times —when the bogus character of the Government's retrenchment scheme has become visible, and when we find the Prime Minister backing and filling on his land policy—this, of all times, is tho time when the fable of the "endowments" should fail to impose on anybody. Land valuation and land taxation figure far more prominently in tho order paper of the Conference than the question of tenure. There is, quite a sheaf of remits on these subjects, in which so great a diversity of opinion is manifest, that the decisions of the Conference will be unusually interesting. We have not space here to go into the merits of the conflicting principles, and in any case the basis of land taxation is of infinitely less importance as a subject for discussion by tho Union than the valuation problem or the urgent necessity of relieving tho land of the oxcessive burdens that it bears .already and that it may be called upon to bear in the future if tho agricultural community fails to rise up in self-defence. Everybody recognises that much injustico is dono in the assessment of the value of improvements, but it is equally likely that an equal injustice may bo the result of an attempt to fix the earning capacity or annual value of land as tho basis i of taxation. The whole question is one requiring very careful consideration. Wo are glad to observe that the conference will be asked to deal with tho scandalous advantage that the Government takes of the Crown Suits Act in respect of tho State-trading enterprises, and also with tho recent disclosure of the misuse in connection with the State Fire Insurance Department of information obtained from settlors by other Departments. There arc a great many other topics of much interest to be discussed, and ■we have no doubt that the Conference's proceedings will be followed with tho attention that has been paid to them in past years.