A WARNING.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1955, 11 December 1906, Page 2

A WARNING.

The Auckland Star, a Government paper, states :Mr cannot imagine that the dissatisfaction with the Land Bill so forcibly expressed by the Manukau electors is confined to Auckland. It is true that the determination to abolish the freehold will effectually block settlement on second-class land ; and as the greater part of the Crown land and native land not yet taken up is located in the North Island and in Auckland district, it follows that the Land Bill in this respect concerns us more serioualy than the rest of the colony. Our circum* I stances compel us to see more clearly than Mr McNab how the Land Bill would not only withdraw the freehold from Crown tenants, but would put a premium on land jobbing and specu-* lativo holding by enhancing the value of freeholds already in existence. But. po3sibly Mr McNab does not even, yet realise that the one straight issue of land tenure were submitted to the North Island electorates, not only in the country, but in the towns, a large majority of seats would be won by freeholders. This surely makes the Manukau election an omen of the gravest importance to the Premier and the Cabinet. The abolition of the optional tenure is desired only by a small minority of extremists in the House and the country. There are many good points in the Land Bill with which we have already expressed our sympathy. But is Government prepared to sacrifice its hold upon the electors by bowing to the will of a handful of faddists and doctrinaires who in their misguided enthusiasm over the “ unearned increment ” are ready to check settlement, to stunt the growth of the colony, aud to paralyse the great Liberal majority by introducing discord into its ranks ? A broken and disorganised party, a discredited Ministry, the settlement of the colony hindered, bright prospects overcast, and the efforts of our greatest Liberal statesmen thwarted —such are the possible, nay, inevitable fruits of Mr McNab’s Land Bill, unless the Premier aud his colleagues take warm* ing in time.