THE LAND BILL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3762, 23 March 1907, Page 3

THE LAND BILL.

New Plymouth, March 21

Dr. Findlay opened the political campaign before a large gathering in the Theatre Royal to-night. Dealing with the land question, he said that it now seemed to have passed the calm, controversial stages and become a fighting political creed, expressed by party cries and preposterous misrepresentation. The head and front of the Government’s offending on the Land Bill was that they would preserve the poor remnant of the Crown lands for pensions, hospitals and education. The cries that they sought to destroy the freehold were idle nonsence. The biggest class interested was the landless people of the colony, who were doing little or no shouting, but the effectiveness or their votes was not reduced by that. The question must be approached from a national standpoint and not from any particular class. Subdividing for closer settlement was now approved, and the only question raised was one of the means.- The Government was prepared to accept advice and, if necessary change the material clauses of the Land Bill. The provision for the reduction of the ,£50,000 limit was condemned. Mr Massey suggested a graduated tax. If the Opposition would join the Government in this, they : would soon have the subdivision of large estates. The Government was going to break up the large estates and prevent aggregation in the future. If the limitation to £15,000 was ineffective, then they could have the graduated tax. He could not support the argument that they should give freehold land for the settlement of the tenants. The Government had done enough for those settlers, each of whom had cost the country an average of £I2OO. It was unfair to ask for further benefits. They offered the land at the price of unimproved freehold to-day. He warned the small settlers that the alliance proffered by the big land-owners, ostensibly in the freehold cause, was not a moral, true alliance. The lease-in-per-petuity tenants already had a concession in the fixed rental for 999 years, but wanted more. The repurchase system would soon have to be superseded. He went on to deal with the provisions of the Bill and its inducements to settlers. He announced that more freehold would be offered in the next two years than in the previous twenty, to a large extent by using the native lands. A motion was carried, with some dissention, thanking the AttorneyGeneral for his address, and expressing confidence in the Ministry, but hoping the Ministry would modify the provisions of the Land Bill.