The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2039, 26 March 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1907.

Most people "'he have taken an interest in the land question aro aware that the Government is steering a very doviotis course in regard to it. They know that tlio original Land Bill is not the sumo as the present one, nor is the attitude of the Government towards the whole question tlio same as it was a few months ago; but no one, wo venture to say, has guessed that the cause for all those changes was what tlio Minister of Lands at Taihapo stated it to be. Speaking to the enlightened people of that) place ,he told them that “unless thoy changed their policy land would become so dear that it would bo impossible for tlio small man to make a living.” AYe have pondered over these woi'd.s of wisdom (for a Ministerial utterance to an enlightened audience ought to be credited with containing some wisdom) but wc have pondered in vain to discover their underlying truth. Indeed it is not easy to discover their actual meaning, for the whole statement so aptly fits the French phrase “double en tendre” that the actual meaning intended by the Minister, if he meant anything at all, is most successfully obscured. The statement, for instance, might logically bear the construction that' the Minister was condemning his own policy and declaring that unless it was changed land would become so dear that the small man could not make a living, and that is possibly wliat lie meant too, for there would be no surer result from the restriction of freehold than that those who possess it would not part with it except at a fictitious price. It is the nature of all scarce commodities that’ they become very considerably enhanced in value when the demand for them is very much greater than the supply, and land is no exception to the general rule, let it is hardly conceivable that a Minister of the Crown would make such an admission intentionally even though he thought t-liat ho was telling the truth. But the difficulty is to discover what policy ho was referring to, for there have been so many of them. However, one thing seems quite clear, and that is that the Aliniser’s words could liavo no reference to any policy that, is not at present ! the law of the land, or some proposed alteration of it, and therefore we arc enabled to see that the coudenmat- - IS)V fh 3 ffftJPpr <>' doeossors. In either case it is equally astounding, for the land policy of the late Sir John Mackenzie had ostensibly no more ardent supporter than the present Minister for Lands, and it. was his policy (or, at any rate so much of it. as ho borrowed from the late Mr. William ltolleston) that the present party until recently never tired of bragging about. To bo told now. by tlio authorised spokesman of that party that unless that policy is changed the small man cannot live is not a high testimonial to themselves, nor docs it show that they possess much consistency; but they have never been suspected of being over-burdened with consistency—opportunists never are. The Minister most conveniently forgot to tell the Taihapo people what there was in the policy that tended to make land so dear, and so we must supply the omission; but the cause will be found in the administrative rather than the legislative department of the policy, though both have contributed their quota towards it. AA 7 hat has tended to raise the price of land all over the colony more than anything else is the unjust, unreasonable, and unjustifiable practice of the A r nluation Department in adopting boom prices as tlio basis of land valuations. Anyone who is not a Government valuer, or strong Government partisan will admit that land is worth only what it will produce, and that to base values all over a district upon one boom transaction brought about for speculative purposes, instead of basing them on an average production over a series of years, is not only unjust, unreasonable, and unjustifiable, but it is absolute extortion. Rates and taxes have to bo paid upon these values, and if the values ore not fair ones it moans that the farmer who uses his land has to pay more than his duo. The speculator in land may have to pay occasionally, but ill that case lie simply adds it to his price and it falls upon the former in the long run. The statement of the Minister appears to admit that this is so, that it tends to undue inflation of values, and as a consequence that unless the Government’s policy is altered the “small man” cannot make a living. AA’liy the Government has pot recognised this long ago and .altered ijie system is the puzzle; but the puzzle is soon solved when we’ remember that the extra money thus screwed out oi the J a ruling community was a necessity to the Government in order that wasteful expenditure may be kept lip. Now that the Government has recognised the injustice, and the danger to the safety of the .small man which the practice has inflicted and is inflicting, the next logical step is for the Government to amend its administration in the proper direction instead of seeking by its Land Bill to make matters still worse in further inflating land values by making available freeholds still more scarce. Time will show whether the Government can act logically.