LAND SALES ACT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 55, 2 September 1943, Page 5

LAND SALES ACT

CAUSES FOR ALARM

FARMERS' UNION OPINION

"I notice that Mr. C. O. Bell said to the annual conference of war amputees that he did not want members to get any exaggerated ideas about the harmful nature of the Servicemen's Settlement and Land Sales, Act, because there was as, yet nothing about which the public should become unduly alarmed," said Mr. A. P. O'Shea, Dominion secretary of the New Zealand Farmers' Umbn, in a statement today. "I would like to make it clear that the Farmers' Union is very alarmed about some of the powers in the Act," said Mr. O'Shea. "It is alarmed that legislation like this should be without any real legal principles and give powers to certain oeople whp are to be completely under the control of the Government. The union was so alarmed at the nature of these powers that it put forward proposals which were admitted by the Prime Minister to be drastic. It cannot, therefore, be suggested that the Farmers' Union is not fully in accord with the objects which everyone professes a desire to achieve, viz., control of speculation; and settlement of servicemen. The union's proposals would have'achieved these objects, but their main defect is, from the Government's point of view, that they wduld not give complete control of land and houses, which is achieved by the Act.

"I would like Mr. : Bell to answer the following questions:—

"(1) Does he believe that a commit* tee (and a committee can be one man) should have the power to say how the purchaser of a house shall use it? "(2) Does he think it right that committeemen can be removed at the whim of the Government?

"(3) Does he agree that any committee should have the power to disapprove of any person who buys a property?

"(4) Does he not think that the amount of land which must be left to a farmer should be laid down definitely as is done in the Lands for Settlements Act?

"(5) Will Mr. Bell say that there is nothing for the public to be alarmed about in the provisions referred .to above? - '

"(6) Will he indicate whether, in his opinion, the provisions referred to above are in line with British legislative and judicial principles?

*'(7) Will he indicate whether or not he is of the opinion that other businesses, particularly hotels, should be taken compulsorily from the 'vested interests', referred $o by th 6 Prime Minister, in the .same way as it is prq-v posed to take land so that returned soldiers who are experienced barmen, or stewards'can be rehabilitated into those lines of economic activity in which they were engaged before the .war?" ■.-: .■ ■■.' ■ . ■.■■..■ .: . ■„■■ ■/;..;;. %;