BUDGET DEBATE

Hokitika Guardian, 22 August 1929, Page 2

BUDGET DEBATE

NO PEAK PRICES: AVOIDANCE OF PAST MISTAKES. WELLINGTON, August 20. The manner in which the Prime Minister had avoided the possibility of a boom in land prices which might have occurred iiv view of the Government's avowed intention of st tiling land was stressed bv Mr Bodkin (Central Otrtgdl itl the House of Representatives to-night, when replying to criticism voiced by Mr D. Jones. Air Bodkin said that the member for Mid-Canterbury had been hard put to it to hide his mortification because' th Prime Minister's policy was so busi-ness-lke. The Minister df Lands had been prevented from going on to the land market till the Gcvernment’s taxation proposals were fully revealed. It ‘■ep’uod to Mr Bodkin that M.r Jones bad honed that - the Prime Minister would make the same mistake that Reform made on the occasion, of its solitary venture into land settlement, fi;hen purchasing land for returned soldiers. The member for 1 Waitemata had pictured the Minister,- of Lands rushing round the country with .a carpet bag stuffed with money in order to purchase land at peak nrires. b’itthat had pot happened. That it did not happen'- was due to the fact that a master lifind was in control. "Sir Jqseph Ward’s warning years ago that disaster would overtake the Government ;in it's-purchase for soldiers desirous of going on the land was unheeded, and 'Reform's caution at that time was equal to that which might be expected of a coster out to, enjoy himself on a bank holiday. Tlie Reform Government had purchased at inflated prices' and millions had to be written off when the value depreciated.. Air Bodkin didi riot doubt that many more thousands would yet have to be ; written off soldier settlements, as a result of that policy. What had been dotto by the Reform Government was utter folly. . / WAITING FOR A MISTAKE. Reformers had hoped that the United Government would make the same mistake, and they had been, sitting up, like Jackie, waiting for a land boom so that they might say: “Yes, we told you so.” Every Reform newspaper had been si’ggesting that there would be a tremendous .land boom and that the Government could not get land at less than the economic value. It. was suggested that the Government could not use the compulsory purchase clauses to get land at less than the economic value. Then in a single night all that was changed by the wealth of wisdom in a few words in Sir Joseph Ward’s Budget, “ Tlie land tax proposals will help land settlement.” When that sentence was read, Reform was left uncomfortably in midair, and now members of the Reform Party had nothing to say except to protest that squatters should not be taxed so heavily/ despite the fact that wealthy land-owners had for years escaped their fair share .of taxation.

Mr Bodkin asserted that Sir Joseph Ward’s proposals were those of a man who knew his job, and of a man who was determined not to have a repetition of what took place when the Reform Party went out to buy land for returned soldiers. When the member for Waitemata spoke, he had drawn a vivid picture of a land boom. So vivid was this word picture that one could almost hoar the coat-tails of Reformers flapping as they rushed about trying to sell land near the Palmerston North deviation, the 'Taupo railway or the Kiriicopuni balloon loop. (Government and Labour laughter.) Now that Sir Joseph Ward’s proposals were known, Reform was left in mid-air.