WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 November 1920, Page 1

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE PRIME MINISTER’S ATTITUDE. j (Our Special Correspondent). During the debate on the second reading of the Bill, the Prime Minister defined afresh his position on the tenuis question, brought it up to date, as it were, with the recent expansion of his J9ll policy.. Tire State, lie said, did rot part with any of the land. It parted with the. right to charge rent, but it retained ail unlimited right to tax land and to resume land. It had even a rght to confiscate land. There need be no talk about parting with Rational assets, he continued. The land was not going out of the Dominion. At present Rotorua was a decaying town. The place was not going ahead because the tenants had not the heart to improve their holdings. It was idle t° talk of the freehold policy as if if meant the recreation of large estates. Without the law of entail and primogeniture the growth of large estates was impossible. 1 THE OTHER SIDEThe “Evening Post” whose devotion to the leasehold in these later days is rather a tradition than a passion, states fhe case for the minority in the House witu some of its old fire, “The supporters of the measure,” it says, “has no reason and no logic—only a majority. The attempts to state a case for the Bill were weak. They consisted wholly •.f tedious repetition of the virtues of the freehold principle. To the objections advanced by the opponents of the BUI the Government made no answer. It used its majority to put the Bill through and it succeeded. The Minister of Lands said he would not take up time in controverting the arguments of t 1 e Opposition. He relied on what he ■ stated to he a .fact, that the Bill was introduced at the earnest desire of a ' majority of the people of the country. The “Post” denies that the Government has any such mandate from the country and challenges Mr Guthrie to produce his evidence. A LEASEHOLDER’S VIEWS. A member of the Opposition, who was not in the House when the division on the second reading of the Bill was taken, admits frankly that the Government has Voting strength enough at its hack to place any legislation it pleases on the Statute Book. “Mr Seddon, in the very zenith of his power,” lie says, “never dominated the House as Mr Massey does.” But lie denies both the assertion that the Government has a mandate from the country and the assumption that it represents a majority of the electors. “It is an old story” he stated in the lobby of the House to-day, “and it is only natural Mr Massey and his colleagues should he anxious to forget it; hut a® a matter , of fact at the last general election fewer than two-fifths of the votes polled were cast for Reform candidates. What justification is there for talking about, a mandate after that?” Nevertheless with a numbef of Liberal freeholders in the House, probably Mr Massey has more right to talk about a mandate yin connection with the tenure question than he has in connection with most others.