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Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 878, 13 August 1910, Page 2

Commenting on the freehold question, an exchange, referring to Mr Taylor’s Right of Purchase from Private Owners Bill, says that the measure is one that will pin the noisy Freehold party down to the point they have always dodged, viz., whether, in their desire to perpetrate a confidence trick and a bare-faced robbery of the national landed estate, they are prepared to admit that what is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. In other words : Having stated many times that it is quite right to deprive the State twhich is a big concern) of its assets, they will now have to say whether they will approve of the same principle being applied to the private individual (who is only a small circumstance of a concern as compared with the State). If they find it necessary to protest against such treatment of the private individual, they will convict themselves of having precious little care for the national well-be-ing, which they propose similar treatment for. On the other hand, if they approve of the individual being treated the same as they propose for the State, they will lose all the support of the Big Estate party, which has stuck to them for so long. In either case they stand to show themselves guilty of a vast amount of sham, not to say hypocrisy. In fact, Mr Taylor’s Bill is calculated to tie the Opposition up in the most awkward of knots, and his proposal that private tenants should be allowed to buy their land from private owners at the original value —exactly what the Opposition proposes for State lauds : —will make that awkwardly situated party squirm most horribly.