The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1906. THE LAND QUESTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3730, 11 December 1906, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1906. THE LAND QUESTION.

Perhaps if the present Government had been game enough to go on with its Band Bill during the last session there would have been no Ward Ministry at the present moment. On the whole it is less expensive for the country that the Ward Ministry did not fall last session, although the usual gallivant of Ministers is hardly saving money. Still one is not altogether sorry that the Government is getting round explaining to the country the provisions of the Band Bill which we are assured will really be tackled next session. It is to be sincerely hoped that there won’t be another Exhibition or a cock fight or any other great national undertaking to delay the conscientious Ministry from pushing that Bill all they know. Everybody is explaining the Band Bill and we are particularly glad to hear that the Premier at a shivoo given to Mr Field at Paekakariki showed himself much averse to one party of agitators in this country. The fair man must be heart and soul with the Premier on the point. Sir Joseph Ward strongly protests against the proposal to allow perpetual leaseholders to acquire the freehold of their holdings at the original valuations. We should smile ! Put it this way. Mr Fatman has ten thousand acres of freehold land. He has been able to get a perpetual leasehold of an adjoining ten thousand acres. He would be able under the law that said he could acquire the freehold at the original value to retard settlement for years. He would be able to become a more bloated person than hitherto. Suppose for sake of illustration that the original value of that perpetual leasehold was 1 os per acre. Suppose the present value—induce by Government valuations, Government borrowing, Government squandering and other sins—to be ,£1 per acre —simple illustration of course.

Why should the Government by a sweep of the pen make a present of a large sum of money to one man ? Suppose too that the leaseholder, who had been permitted to acquire the freehold at the original valuation was one of those persons who held more land than he will be entitled to should the Fowlds-McNab bill pass. Such a clause would first of all double or treble or quadruple his cash land-value. The limitation of areas clause steps in and says he must sell the surplus land he has just bought for the original value. But no laud bill ever yet put before the country says that Mr Fatman shall also proceed to cut up his surplus land and sell it at the original valuation. So that Sir Joseph Ward will be doing the only honest thing if he fights such a conservative Fatman proposal tooth and nail. Everybody wants the freehold. There is not a man in this country noble enough to miss the opportunity of acquiring some of the land to be his, his heirs and assigns for ever. But to force the Fatman to cut up land he has bought at the original valuation and then sell it at any price he likes (he having due regard to the value of improvements made by his fellow-man) is very like punishing a misdemeanent with a free pardon and a purse of sovereigns. Although every man in the Ministry is a freeholder at heart he is a leaseholder in politics, but is willing to allow small freeholders —a very proper thing. But the huge freeholder, even under the Fowlds-McNab Bill cannot be restrained from still continuing to be the Fatman of the country, nor can he be restrained from being a very large freeholder. The clause setting out that no man shall hold land of a greater capital value than ,£50,000 still gives a man holding that value of land near a township every chance to retard settlement in that vicinity and to have the capital value raised without any effort of his own, should the district progress in spite of him. The Maori lands of the colony also present a grave problem, for at present many million acres of them typify idleness and sloth that have a detrimental effect on the country generally. In fact the Native Minister by a stroke of statesmanship has within his grasp the power of doing in a lesser degree than the Minister of Bands, an immense amount of good towards the settlement of the land by producing a workable scheme, that while not pressing hardly on Maori owners, will yet bring their lands under cultivation either by them or the white settlers. It is in'our opinion a more difficult and delicate task to deal with the honest settlement of Native lands than to deal with the settlement of Crown lands or lands now held by large owners, because there is ever a disposition in dealing with natives to make the natives suffer financially. On the other hand the native as a landlord isn’t a success either to himself or his tenant, because an income without work is an inducement to the Maori to continue in idleness. It is said that the Maoris are increasing in numbers and to still augment the increase it is more than ever necessary that the Maoris shall work. They won’t work to any large extent while their untilled laud keeps them in idleness. It may be as the Native Minister said he hoped, that the Maori race will be absorbed by the pakeha, but it is not apparent to the average man that this will happen for a very long time. It is also to be hoped that it won’t happen at all. Although the native owner is supposed to be unable to transfer his fee-simple of his land there is no doubt that he has been doing it extensively even of late. It is an interesting point whether ' recently transferred native lands in the Wellington provincial district have really become the property of the pakehas who have'bought them, or whether, if the Maoris claimed reinstatement, it would be granted. While alienation of native lands by natives is obviously illegal and morally hard on the natives, it is the fact of holding much land that keeps many Maoris from being of some use to the community. A Fatman Maori is as big a curse as a Fatman pakeha, but as a rule the Maori is a bigger curse to himself than the pakeha. The pakeha distributes the curse impartially and is generally a hard-headed sober curse who becomes a bigger blight as years go on. When the Maori lands of the colony come into the market for competition it may be found that some whitesculled pakeha desires to obtain it at the original valuation —say a glass bead an acre or a blanket per mile. It would be just as reasonable as the proposal justly attacked by the Premier that leaseholders should obtain the fee-simpe of their holdings by paying the original value. ‘ Original value ’ is an elastic term. In the Empire city there is not a very large block of land that is valued at ,£BO,OOO. Its original value was nil, as it was seashore. Why doesn’t someone acquire it at its original value ?