MR. HOLLAND IN THE NORTH

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 122, 21 February 1928, Page 7

MR. HOLLAND IN THE NORTH

ADDRESS ON LAND PROBLEM. By Telegraph.—Press association. Whangarei, February 19. The greater part of Mr. H. E. Holland’s speech on Saturday evening was devoted to the land problem in its four main phases of aggregation, mortgages, interest and transfers. The speaker first analysed Ihe contention that there was no aggregation and said that on 43,500,(X)0 acres of rural lands in New Zealand there were only 85 734 landholders out of a population of nearly one and a half millions. Of these, 6978 held nearly 30,000,000 acres, and 78,356 had together fewer than 14,000,060 acres. These figures included big pastoral leases, but were said to be sufficient evidence of aggregation from the point of view of area. If values were considered the comparison was equally striking. There were 51,506 land tax payers with properties valued nt £233,750,000. Thirty-eight persons hold land in value over <£ls 000 each. Two thousand and eighty had land worth £30,000, 1944 held £20,000 worth, and tens of thousands had not even £lOOO worth. The country was destined to be one of small holdings with intensive cultivation and with all the resources of science being brought to increase production, the Labour Party proposed to acquire and cut up the largo estate and to graduate the land tax far more steeply than at present. In the sixteen years of Reform Government, he said, registered mortgages had increased from 28.7 per cent, to 47 per cent, of the total capita] value of property. This was an increase in indebtedness of nearly 200 per cent., as against a capital increase of SO per cent. In the period under review more than half the area of New Zealand had been transferred. Many of these transactions were necessary .and inevitable, but an immense proportion were caused through the mortgagee and the speculator. Mr. Holland went on to deal with wages in relation to farmers’ produce to show that higher wages meant a wider market for the primary producers both at Home and abroad. Most of the legislation introduced by the Reform Government to assist the farmer, he concluded, had been a dead letter.