THE LAND PROPOSALS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 601, 25 November 1909, Page 3

THE LAND PROPOSALS.

VIGOROUS PROTESTS BY leaseholders.

obliterating party LINES.

Wellington, Nov. 23

Over a thousand leaseholders and sympathisers met in the Town Hall to-night to protest against the Government’s land proposals. Mr W. T. Noot (president of the Wellington Trades and Labour Council) occupied the chair. He explained that the council had called the meeting.

Mr D. McLaren, M.P., said the people should be consulted on this most important question. The Budget bad never been before the people. The Government was in a tight position financially, and thought it easier to sell the country’s lands than face the position. He moved: “That before any legislation is passed sacrificing the people’s interest in the leasehold over existing Crown lands, or in lands settled under the Lands for Settlement Act, and before any more of the publicly-owned laud is sold, all the people of the Dominion should have an opportunity of saying by means ot referendum vote whether they are willing that the proposals now before Parliament shall become law, or whether all existing Crown land shall remain the property of the people and be dealt with under the leasehold system, so that future increases in rental value shall be available for reduction of the burdens of taxation. This meeting further holds that to change the existing leases into freehold would create a privilege which is not in the covenant entered into by lessees, and would give to such leesees a decidedly unjust advantage over all other applicants for such laud by excluding the element of competition, whereby the real value of land can only be arrived at.’’

Mr A. W. Hogg, M.P., declared the Government’s laud policy to be absolutely dishonest. Every member of the Ministry which proposed it had a right to be brought before the Supreme Court. The next thing would be the disposal of the national endowment.

Mr T? E. Taylor, M.P., said gambling had been allowed to go on in State-owned farms, which had created a class of rack-rented tenants. If there was any gamb-* ling to be done by the re-sale of farms, the State should get the benefit. He protested against the sale of a siugle acre of Crown lands. The land proposals ot the Budget really obliterated party lines.

The motion was carried, with but two dissentients.