Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8th, 1920.

Hokitika Guardian, 8 November 1920, Page 2

Hokitika Guardian & Evening Star MONDAY, NOVEMBER Bth, 1920.

THE COUNTRY’S LARGESS. According to ouy Wellington letter publishel last Friday, the Prime Minister, under his freehold principles, is bent on giving all the country’s estate away, he can. Mr Massey explained that the State did not part with any of the land.y It parted with the right to charge rent, but it retained an unlimited right to tax land and resume land. It lias event a right to confiscate land and his resumption proposals only emphasise the fact that 1 the land Bhould not have been given away in the first instance. The freeholder’s readiness to appropriate land is] with the object. of acquiring the benefits which the State should be in ; the position to enjoy were the land retained. Nrhe rent or annual value of the land is the soundest income the State could enjoy, but it gives this right away that individuals may derive the j benefits. Mjr Massey’u remarks were j made apropos of the Rotorua town freehold measure, and the Premier commented that Rotorua, was a decaying town. That indicates that in the first instance the land will be disposed of for a deprecated price. In any case what value the land has is the creation of the State, for is there any other spo’ j in New Zealand which has had so much j money poured out to make it the show place of the Dominion? Despite this J continual lavish out pouring of money, , Rotorua is on the down grade, and it is this juncture, the Government talk of selling. Mr Massey says, path-ti-cally, that the tenants have not <he j heart to improve their holdings! If this be so, how much better off null they he by possessing tlie freehold I*/-ure, whereas they could use that cash now to improve their leaseholds. The difference in tenure will not stop the decay, hut production will, and if they used their money to effect greater production, and a larger turnover, the decay would be checked. The Government appar--1 ently may do as they please in the present House, and this supremacy suits i the. R-efoi'm policy of the freehold. The endowments are being attacked now, and it will be serious thing for the future of local government it these lands are converted into freeholds. In the cities aud other place? where reclamation and other means of bring more land into use are possible, the local bodies stick to the leasehold because it gives them a permanent income, behind which they have a solid and substantial asset in the land itself. This is sound, for as the years go by and the country develops, that asset goes on increasing in value and returning lai*gor rents still. Mr Massey and j his followers do not believe in the State enjoying that opulence. They believe in handing over the land to those who can afford to buy it—parting with the asset for a trifle of its real value and allowing the wealthy purchaser to rejp the harvest of future profits. It.*s : not sound statesmanship. It is a reversal of the land policy of the country. Yet on the whole the people appear f o be indifferent to the trend of events and are unconcerned that something which is of untold value to the community is passing out of its grip.