The Dominion. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1913. ABUSE OF THE FARMER.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1882, 16 October 1913, Page 6

The Dominion. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1913. ABUSE OF THE FARMER.

We wonder what Sir Joseph Ward and the other freeholders in the ranks of tho Opposition thought of' the wild and abusive references mado to tho men on the land by somo of the leaseholders in their party during tho rcccnt discussion on the . Land Bill. Tho member for Christchurch North kopt referring to thoso who desired the freehold as being prompted by greed, and ho described the talk about tho sentiment underlying the desire for the freehold as "rotten cant." The momber for Lyttelton, in the course of a characteristic attack on the freehold, threatened increased taxation when the "Liberals" got back to office. Mr. Webb, the LabourSocialist member who has consistently clung to the skirts of the "Liberal" party since Wb election for Grey, even went tho length of threatening to break the covenant with holders of leases-in-perpetuity should occasion require. No doubt this sort of thing, in the. eyes .of the extreme Radicals and Socialists, is helpful to settlement and encouraging the man on tho land. Nothing, we should say, would be more likely to strengthen tho position of the Reform Government throughout the country than these attacks on thoso engaged in farming pursuits. The Leader of tho Opposition was shrewd enough to see that tho time had arrived when he must get down from the fence on which ho. has balanced for so long and plump definitely for the freehold; but tho majority of his followers declined to follow his lead, and they dominate the party. What would happen should the party over win its way on to the Treasury benches again _ with the Hadical and Labour-Socialist element still dominating it is not difficult to guess at. One thing is certain, it would bo a bad day for the man on tho land, the. primary producer; and if things are bad with him the people in tho towns are going to suffer as well. However, that contingency is so remote that it is hardly worth discussing at the present time, except to place on record the bitterness of the feeling displayed towards those engaged in farming pursuits., During the recent lengthy discussions of tho Land Bill there was strong evidence that the extreme leasehold clement in the Houso of Representatives has found it necessary to bolster up the weakness of its case by the use of increasingly strong language. Argument has been largely abandoned, and appeals to 'class passion and grandiloquent denunciation of the "sacrificing of the heritage of the people" and so on have taken its place. It has been a common practice amongst present-day leaseholders to quote Sir j John M'Kenzie as the great champion in this country of that form of tenure, and they usually endeavour to make it appear that with him it was a case of the leasehold and nothing but the leasehold. As a matter of fact Sir John M'Kenzie, though he was an ardent leaseholder, was not anything like so extreme or so extravagant in his ideas as some of his disciples of to-day. His objection to the freehold was a very different. sort of thing to that exprescd, say, by Mr. Webb or Mr. Laurenson. In tho course of his spccch, when placing before Parliament his famous Land Bill of 1892, ho said: —

I say, Sir, to the Leader of the Opposition, that if lie or any other member of this House can point out to mo any system under which, by giving the freehold to everyone who asks for it, we can retain the people on the land, and prevent the accumulation of it in large estates, I shall be very glad to assist m any proposal of that sort.

This from one who was regarded as the greatest leaseholder of his time. He added that he could not see how tlie people, could be retained on tho land excopt by, tho leasehold system, bccausc there was no other possible means that, lie could think of that would orovent aggregation.- B3

objection to the freehold, as here stated, was that ho could find no means of preventing aggregation. The Bill now before Parliament provides the safeguard against aggregation which alone was necessary to make Sin John M'Kenzie willing to concede the right to the freehold' tenure. Sir John M'Kenzie was always in deep sympathy with the man on the land, and the abuse of the farmer which is so freely indulged in by some of the present-day Radicals and Labour-Socialists in and out of Parliament would have met with tie strongest censure from him.