Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, JULY 80, 1891. The Land Bill.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 30 July 1891, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, JULY 80, 1891. The Land Bill.

• Last Friday the Government succeeded in forcing the second reading of the Land Bill. There had been no real opportunity given for its proper criticism and after having driven the public home and the reporters to bed, the Ministers compelled their following to agree to the second reading. Such action is on a par with others of the Hon John McKenzie, but we are pleased to see that the Wellington papers assure him such conduct will in no way permit him to burke the discussion he apparently dreads. Both the Timet and Post have leaned very favourable to the party in power but they now condemn this measure in no uncertain manner, as well as the forcing of the second reading under the ciroumstances. The Post says "Amongst the Government supporters great dissatisfaction exists at having been practically denied an opportunity of speaking on this most important measure. Members who really had something to say on the subject feit no inclination to address a sleepy House of ten or twelve members in the early hours ofthe morning, or while Hansard and the press were excluded, yet this was the only opportunity afforded to them. There was really nothing to justify the determination to rush the Bill through at Friday's sitting." " And if Mr McKenzie shows himself impatient of reasonable criticism he will undoubtedly have to encounter something worse, and the too frequent use of his majority may not improbably result some day in the majority refusing to respond to its leader's call." This Land Bill purposes by a side-wind to destroy the present system of dealing with the lands of the Colony, as subsection one of clause 127 states, " notwithstanding anything in the last preceding section (1) any notification as aforesaid may declare the lands mentioned therein to be open for sale exclusively for oash, or exclusively on deferred payments, or for disposal exclusively pp

perpetual lease;" thus leaving the mode to the will of the Minister of Lands. The alterations in the Act appear unneces-*^;/ at v certainly tend against the settlement of the land, The N. Z. Times points out that •• The Bill turfcher destroys the opportunity for employing savings, by destroying the double improvement condition which the present law substitutes for residenoe. Many working men and small traders have taken advantage of that opportunity. Are they and others to be shut out from the land by a Liberal Government ? Is a, man who wants to start his son in life on a piece of land to be debarred by a Liberal Government by fear of five years' imprisonment and the goal brand for the rest of his natural life ? " The Bill is a yery long one, having aoxne 287 clauses with a number /of schedules and is therefore one that should have been given time for members to have debated. The Post warns the Minister that •• if he tries to oarry the olauses of this particular Bill through oommittee by bounoe, he will certainly fail, It contains much that is highly objectionable, and entirely unacceptable to even a large seotion of the Ministerial party." The N. Z. Timet says about the new clauses that " first there are the perpetual lease clauses. So far as we understand them, the effect will be to convert the perpetual lease tenure, so called, into a reality of perpetual lease. The modus opetandi is not by extending the term of lease to fifty years, but by removing all the conditions under which the freehold is at present acquired." Referring to the clause limiting the cash sales of land in any one year to £150,000, it says, "it leaves quite untrammelled any Minister who may be anxious to apply the prinoiple of nationalisation." And again "as it stands, the Bill is the most insidious and powerful attack on the freehold system, and as such will be scouted, as it deserves, from one end of the country to the other." Clause 85 restricting the owning of more than 2000 aores of land by one person whether such land was acquired by purchase, lease, marriage, or under a settlement or will, or by virtue of an intestacy, the same paper truly remarks " the only thing clear about it is tbat it is fep.:.fc.l and wonderful." Such is the Bill whioh the ♦« Liberal" Government drove through the House at a very early hour on Saturday morning when members were sleepy, and Hansard and the Press were excluded J We fear that our contemporany tbe N. Z- Times has hit the faults in the Bill too truly when it described " everything that is new in it is crude, ill-con-ceived, irredeemably bad." We shall not be surprised to hear that those members, who will take the first opportunity to review the new clauses, when their words will be reported, are accused of being obstructionists, but for the good of the oountry we trust they will, at all hazards, point out the pitfalls that have been dug by this Minister of Lands. They will deserve well of their fellow settlers,