The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1907. HEDGING ON THE LAND BILL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3766, 21 May 1907, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, MAY 21, 1907. HEDGING ON THE LAND BILL.

The Hon. Robert McNab, partmanufacturer of the Land Bill, manages to get interviewed on the question of his darling in those districts which are most likely, on account, of the nearness of a settlement area, to give a useless support to the proposed legislation. Mr McNab, in an interview at Ashburton, pretended a vivid optimism about this Land Bill. He has really no reason in the world to feel optimistic that the people of New Zealand are heart and soul with him although he may of course be telling the truth when he says he thinks he will get support from the House. Wherein, of course, he shows, that the opinions of the House are not necessarily the opinions of the members’ employers—the people. If the House supports the Land Bill as it now stands, the members will show that they have not the faintest claim to the support of the people, for from north to south — except in settlement areas—the •people have shown an antipathy to the Bill that should eternally condemn it, and make the House of Parliament also condemn it. Where the McNab is “ hedging,” is in his statement that he cannot indicate the area of ground that will be set aside for endowments. The Bill indicates it with great clearness. Let us quote from section 3, sub-section x of the Land Act Amendment of October, 1906: “ National Endowment lor Educational and other purposes, All Crown Lands remaining unsold or unselected on the coming into operation of this Act—but not including Settlement land, or land reserved or set aside as endowments or reserves —are hereby set apart as national endowments for the purposes hereinafter mentioned.” That is clear enough.

How is it that Mr McNab does m t know what area will be set aside ? The Bill says all unsold Crown land. Mr McNab indicates that he and his co-visionaries have.climbed down. Mr McNab says the free--hold the Crown offers by auctioning the land the Crown forcibly disposes old lessees of, may not be carried. If it is carried, by the way, the Houses of Parliament ought to be prosecuted for cruelty. And anyhow, why is there to be any freehold ? And further, why should the land be taken from a lessee and auctioned ? And why should a buyer be entitled to the fee simple of an ex-lessee’s land, when the Government will not grant the fee simple of any of the Crown land remaining unsold at the coming into operation of the Land Bill ? Mr McNab is astonished at the unanimity of members regarding the limitation of private estates. He is easily astonished ! The unanimity of members, if such exists, in this connection is an acknowledgment by members that they desire to see the large landholder remain fairly undisturbed by the proposed legislation. The large man has to quit his surplusage under the Bill within ten years, and he has to quit it to the small holder, who has no right to the freehold of privately-owned land if the lessee of National Endowment land has no right to the fee simple of his holding. Speaking about the Clydedale Estate, which the Government did not acquire because the price was too high,, Mr McNab merely indicates what may happen when the great estate owners are bound by law to sell their surplusage ten years hence. When the big man is served with a notice to quit his land he should have some rights as a property-owner as to the disposition of the excess. The Bill says, however, that having been given notice to reduce his estate, the Minister of Lands simply takes charge of the excess and SELLS it apparently to whomsoever he will. In this strange Bill there is apparently no standard of valuation set for the Minister to sell by. He simply sells. One may imagine there will be some Appeal cases over this part of the business. Owners of large estates may be deemed to have rights even in a Compensation Court. But the aggravating part of this arrangement is that although the Government takes the selling of the excess portion out of the hands of the owner, the Government does not lease it nor add the seized land to the National estate, but merely passes it on to a small freeholder. This would be alright if the endowment leaseholder had a right to acquire the freehold too. But he hasn’t. He has got to work away on his sixty-six years’ lease, and watch the more fortunate man who got a bit of freehold from from the fat man, enjoying absolute security and indeterminable possession. If the Government, guided by its cranks, wants land nationalisation, why does it do the thing in this piecemeal fashion ? In the matter of some Crown lands (the “endowment ” portion) it proposes to nationalise it, and not sell a single acre. In respect of Crown lands, the leases for which have expired, it proposes to sell the freehold. This may be fair in the eyes of the Ministerial visionaries, but no one else but a Minister could see it. In respect to the land from which the large owners are dispossessed, the Government propose to sell again, and not lease. The obvious effect of this is retrogression. A man may get the freehold if (x) he waits until some poor beggar of a Crown leaseholder has finished his lease and is not disposed to pay the highest price at auction for the holding. (2) He may wait for ten years until the big owners are dispossessed of their surplusage, when he may buy the freehold from the Government who have seized the land, and who will presumably pay the owner, minus the Government charges, for undertaking forcible auction. The extraordinary part of the Land Bill is the kindness it displays to the large land holder and the harshness it shows to the small man and the person who desires to become a small landholder. It is an absurdity that a Government which pretends to desire to settle the land quickly should put off the breaking up of the very large estates for ten years, when it proposes next year to prevent everybody it is able, from getting any estate at all, but merely the hire of it. Be it again noted that when the big landholder has disgorged his excess, and has been paid a stiff figure for it, he still has fifty thousand pounds’ worth of freehold, not leasehold. Why, if the Government intends to deal with all alike, does it not propose to dispossess him altogether as it proposes to do with the little leaseholder, whose land is to be auctioned when the lease expires? Why not seize the whole lot, and let the owner bid in the market for it in exactly the same way that the man with the expired lease is advised to do in the Bill ? Even should the Government become the only medium for selling land—as the Government would do under the Bill in its completeness—there is no guarantee that boodling of the worst kind would not follow. Every member of the Ministry has made money by the conduct of private business. Yet every member is pledged to worry and harass private enterprise at every opportunity, In the meantime, although the Government is in a promising mood, nothing happens to ease the intolerable land-hunger. The Government boasts of the millions of acres of Crown land it still has, but in practice it seems to have a very few acres indeed if the ballots are any indication. A few get land, and thousands get nothing. The Crown lands that will be available when this Bill passes—it won’t

pass, but we merely use the illustration —are available now. If the people want land when the Bill passes (?) they want it now. If the Government has so many million acres of land, why does it worry with any private estates for the next ten years, and why doesn’t it put the wealth.of Crown lands it says it possesses into the market now —or at least allow people to take a lease of it ? Ihe people are kept in a constant state of “ there’s a good time coming-”